


All the King's Horses

by Lindenharp



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Children of Time Nominee, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Podfic Available, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindenharp/pseuds/Lindenharp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A star empire is menaced by deadly creatures from the time of Rassilon. Will one lone Time Lord and a human companion be enough to defeat them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Customs of the Nation

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place sometime between _Planet of the Ood_ and _The Sontaran Stratagem_. The Doctor is still recovering from The Year That Never Was -- an experience that he has not mentioned to Donna.

**Chapter 1: The Customs of the Nation**

**Accustom yourself, as soon as possible, to the customs of the nation which you are visiting, and, as far as you can without any violation of principle, follow them.**

_The gentlemen's book of etiquette, and manual of politeness: being a complete guide for a gentleman's conduct in all his relations towards society ... From the best French, English, and American authorities, by Cecil B. Hartley. Boston, 1873._

The lanky young man in the back corner is standing very still, smiling at the shopkeeper in a polite, disinterested way. From a dozen meters away, Donna can't make out his exact words, but she can hear that his tone of voice is soft, calm, and utterly reasonable.

Donna sighs. _Oh, hell! What's he on about, now?_ She knows that mild-mannered facade. It means that the Doctor is barely holding on to his temper. It is always a bit alarming when the Doctor gets angry. Stuff tends to get broken: teacups… windows… buildings… lives. The breakage is usually an unintentional side effect of his setting something right, but it is still a case of 'all the King's horses and all the King's men'. Too often, even superglue and a sonic screwdriver aren't enough to repair Humpty-Dumpty.

She tries to gauge his level of anger. It is several notches below volcanic — an adjective she no longer uses lightly. That level of anger is usually in response to Really Bad Things, like alien invasions, the death of innocents, or mucking about with the fabric of space-time. This is… annoyed, with a dash of insulted. She looks around the shop, trying to determine what has set him off. The shop itself seems perfectly ordinary. Donna rolls her eyes. It says something about her current lifestyle that she can describe a shop on a planet in another flippin' galaxy as 'ordinary'. But really, it's just a junk shop, like a dozen others that the Doctor has dragged her into today, looking for a replacement thingamabob for the TARDIS.

The shopman is ordinary, too. His mottled orange skin clashes terribly with the magenta and green sarong draped around his knobbly body, but Donna has seen uglier outfits on humans in London. Uglier people, too, if she's honest.

The shopman seems eager to placate his customer. He says something else that Donna can't hear, and performs a sort of bow, accompanied by rapid hand gestures. The Doctor's posture relaxes slightly, and he nods. Then he's striding across the shop, grasping Donna by the wrist, and hauling her outside to the wide, sunny concourse. "Nothing here! Allons-y, no time to waste!"

"Easy there, Space Boy! What did Mister Marmalade say to get your knickers in a twist?"

He does not meet her eyes. "Nothing important. C'mon, there's another shop just around the corner–"

Donna can be very stubborn when she chooses, though she prefers to call it 'tenacious'. It's clear to her that the Doctor needs to talk and let his feelings out. And indeed, as the afternoon progresses, his temper rises, despite her frequent encouragement to 'let it all out'. As they exit the seventeenth shop (which does not have the right sort of thingamabobs in stock), he frowns, shoves his hands even deeper in his coat pockets, and mutters, "He wanted to buy you."

"What did you say?" Donna makes him repeat it twice before she hisses, "That's not funny!"

"'Course it's not funny, but it's true. He wanted to buy you, and asked me how much. And I told him — right away, I told him that I would certainly never consider such an offer–" The dark scowl on Donna's face makes the Time Lord wonder if she is confused about which of the two of them is called 'The Oncoming Storm'.

"Oi! Did it occur to you to tell him that you had no right to even listen to an offer? That I am not your property?" Anger propels her into a stride so brisk that even the Doctor's long legs have to work to keep up. "And I thought you said this was a civilized planet? 'It's a fantastic, ancient culture, you'll love it there, Donna,'" she mimics. "If they're so bloody civilized, why do they have slaves?"

"They are! And they don't!" the Doctor protests. "Paalgiou is one of the Founding Empires of this galaxy — millions of years of art and science — nearly as old as Gallifrey. They abolished slavery back when humans were still trying to figure out fire." He smiles, reminiscing. "Might have taken you lot even longer to do that, if I hadn't come along to lend a hand."

"What!?" Donna squawks. "No, never mind. So, what did he want me for, then? He thought I looked like a raspberry scone, and fancied having me for tea?"

"Nah. Ancient civilization, absolutely brilliant place, but you can't get a decent cuppa anywhere on the planet, and believe me, I've looked. They do have very good chips, though." One glance at her face, and the stream of nonsense halts. "Errm. Sorry. Humans are rare — very rare -- in this sector and… well…hethoughtyouweremypet." The Doctor takes a gulp of air that he doesn't really need.

Donna recites the alphabet in her mind. Backwards. Twice. "Right, so they see someone who doesn't look like a wrinkled satsuma, and they think 'poodle' or 'budgie'. What about you? You look human — how come ol' blobby didn't ask me about your price?"

The Doctor looks so gobsmacked that Donna wants to laugh, despite her bad mood. His expression is what she might see if she walked up to one of the Royals and said, "Need a few quid for the bus ride home, luv?" She holds up a hand before he can speak. "I know, I know. Time Lord, superior species, blah blah blah."

He tries to look stern and disapproving, but the brown eyes are laughing. "Well, yeah. Besides, I think I'd be rubbish as a pet. Not very good at obedience, y'know."

"That's okay. You talk better than a parrot. Just gotta put you in a giant birdcage, and let you chatter away."

His eyes are no longer merry or warm. They are distant, dark, and cold, as if he is viewing some horror that compels his attention against his will.

_My God, what did I say? Cage? Is he remembering the Ood, then? _ That doesn't make sense. Yeah, he'd had to listen to their Song of Captivity, the song that had almost shattered her heart with sorrow, but it had all come right in the end. They'd broken the circle, freed the Ood — all the Ood, everywhere — and heard the Song of Rejoicing. No, it's something else putting that look on his face, something more personal.

The Doctor is still staring at something that only he can see. He shudders. "No," he breathes, "Don't hurt them. Please."

Donna has no idea what memories might be haunting the Doctor. Leading the life he does, there must be plenty of nightmares to choose from. She also has no idea what to do for a 900-year-old alien with more baggage than Heathrow Airport. Her instincts tell her that the one thing he doesn't need is someone getting all soppy over him. "Doctor? Oi! Doctor!"

The Time Lord turns and blinks at her. "What?" His voice sems to come from very far away, but he is responding to her. _Good, that's a start. _

"They got anything to eat on this planet besides chips? I lost a kilo last week, with all that running from the frog-monsters, and I'm not going to put it back on for a handful of alien chips. I could murder a salad, though."

This shakes him back to full awareness, and he is soon leading the way to a nice little restaurant on the main square. Donna digs into her salad — tasty, despite being purple and blue — while the Doctor natters on about the various species of sentient plants that have tried to eat him over the centuries. "–and it was at least a year before I could look at a carrot in quite the same way." He's back to the normal breakneck pace, the manic grin, and the nonstop blathering about anything and everything. To look at him now, that moment in the street is entirely forgotten. Donna doesn't believe it for a second.

When the waiter presents the bill, he inclines his upper torso in a formal bow, with accompanying hand gestures. It reminds Donna of the nervous shopkeeper. "What's that about?"

"What? Oh, that. That's an Obeisance of Respect in the Fourth — no, the Fifth Degree," the Doctor says. "Told you, this is an ancient civilization, nearly as old as my lot, and very nearly as stuffy." He explains that they have all kinds of ritualized gestures and courtesies, depending on the situation, and the respective ranks of the parties involved. To Donna's amusement, the Doctor procedes to demonstrate some of these: the Obeisance of Respect in the First Degree (used by commoners towards nobles), the Acknowledgement of Equals, the Acknowledgement of Submission (used to servants), and the Obeisance of Submission in the First Degree (used by everyone towards the Imperator). This last is a crouching genuflection that makes the Doctor wince as he rises. "Blimey, I think I twisted my back. You really need an extra leg joint to do that one properly."

After lunch, they finally locate a shop that can get the right thingamabob. It will take several hours to have it transferred from the storage warehouse, so the Doctor offers Donna a whirlwind tour of the city. They visit the Palace of Glorious Endeavour, a sort of science museum where the Doctor oohs and aahs over various incomprehensible contraptions, which he describes as 'quaint' or 'brilliant' or 'not too shabby'. One item, which resembles a giant tin-opener, causes him to shake his head. "Bit of a bad idea, that. I told H'zkru, I said 'You don't know what you're messing with.' But did he listen? No. And then…. MOOB!" He sees Donna's raised brows. "He imploded."

Then to the Botanical Olfactorium, a sort of public garden where the plants are arranged in order by their type of odor. Many of the scents are lovely, though strange; a few nearly make her sick. The Doctor inhales them all, and keeps up a constant stream of commentary. He points to one that looks like a bundle of red twigs. "Try that."

Donna bends over and takes a cautious sniff. "Chicken curry?"

The Doctor grins. "Yes, isn't it fantastic?" He insists that another one smells just like granite. Pink granite, to be precise. When Donna protests that the plant has no odor, and neither does granite — of any color — the Doctor shakes his head. "Humans! It's not your fault you've only got five senses, but you could at least learn to use those properly."

Donna suggests that if a certain Martian keeps sticking his nose in the air, he may find it bloodied before too long. This produces a temporary silence, other than a muttered, "How many times do I have to tell you — I'm not from Mars."

Next stop is the Great Chamber of the Senate of Paalgiou, the seat of government for an empire spanning twenty-seven star systems. The Doctor secures them front-row seats in the visitors' gallery — without the use of psychic paper. Donna gazes down on the Senate floor, a scene that looks like a cross between Commons Question Time and a Christmas panto. The Senators wear sarongs similar to those she's seen on other natives, but made of glittering brocades in rich jewel tones. They sit clustered by colour: here a group in garnet red, another in deep amber, and a third in sapphire blue. Donna wonders if the colours represent ranks, political factions, geographic regions, or some other esoteric designation. _Maybe those are the colours of their football club_s, she thinks, supressing a laugh, before deciding that this lot is too pompous for something as common as football (or its local equivalent).

The voices of the Senators carry clearly to the ends of the Great Chamber, but Donna can only understand about half of what is being said. She whispers to the Doctor, "Is something wrong with the TARDIS translation circuit?"

He whispers back, "Very old civilization with a very old, complex language. Parts of it are mathematical, with a fifth dimensional grammar structure that doesn't translate well into English. You're not missing anything important. The bloke in red is complaining about taxes, and the tall one in blue said that his Honourable Colleague is a whinging fathead — except that he said it a bit more elegantly."

The tone changes when a Senator in amber rises from his seat. His voice is deeper, more urgent than his fellows. "I urge you, my brethren, to consider the growing threat of untranslatable. If the untranslatable continues to rise, then the Empire has no more than a year before untranslatable. Brethren, I have seen a portent this day — a portent in this very Chamber. On this dark day, a untranslatable is among us!" He turns, sweeping both of his gnarled arms upwards to point at the place in the gallery where the Doctor is sitting.

A wave of murmurs and whispers spreads throughout the Great Chamber, and hundreds of staring eyes are fixed on the Doctor. The Time Lord glances over his shoulder, and the expression on his face suggests that he is not pleased by the view. Donna turns in her seat. Twenty of the Senatorial Guards are at the rear of the gallery, marching towards them with weapons drawn.


	2. The Customs of the Nation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 2: According to His Degree  
> **

**Chapter 2: According to His Degree  
**

**In which the Doctor introduces himself, Donna learns some Gallifreyan history, and the Last Time Lord receives a surprising request.**

In writing or Speaking, give to every Person his due Title According to his Degree &amp; the Custom of the Place.

George Washington, _Rules of Civility_

It says something about the Doctor's lifestyle that he has a special smile reserved for people who are pointing lethal weapons at him. At those times, he reminds Donna of a puppy: friendly and harmless. It's strange how many people don't see past the smile and the wide, innocent eyes. They don't see the analytical mind whirring at a billion miles an hour; assessing, planning, weighing options. Friendly? Yes. Harmless? Definitely not.

The guards snap their right arms up, pointing their blasters at the ceiling before holstering them. It's some kind of salute, Donna realizes. The guard captain fixes his gaze on the Doctor. "Honorable Sir. If you will please accompany me to the Lower Audience Hall?"

As they descend from the gallery, Donna hisses, "What's this about?"

The Doctor shrugs. "I haven't been here in three or four centuries. Don't remember anyone being particularly annoyed with me. They're pompous, and much too fond of protocol, but it isi a civilized planet. No one is going to start shouting, 'Off with their heads!' Unlike Elizabeth the First. Still haven't figured that one out."

"Wha--? Never mind. But some day soon, Space Boy, you and I are going to sit down for a long overdue conversation."

The Lower Audience Hall is crowded with Paalgi of all ranks. The babble of conversation drops to a low hum as the outworlders enter with their escort. At the front of the Hall is a tall Paalgi, dressed not in a sarong, but a sleeveless robe of black and white. He stands in graceful stillness, and wears authority like an invisible crown.

"Either we're being honoured, or we're in a great deal of trouble," the Doctor whispers. "That is a very important bloke – second in authority to the Imperator himself."

The important bloke casts a long, appraising look at the newcomers. "I am Jrzek F'lall, High Minister of Paalgiou." He rattles off a string of titles. First Among the Faithful, Guardian of the Fourth Circle, Holder of the Lesser Justice, etc., etc. When the long solemn recitation is finished, the Minister falls silent. He waits.

The Doctor inclines his head in the Acknowledgement of Equals. "Hullo! Very pleased to meet you. I'm the Doctor. Time Lord. And my companion, Donna Noble."

"Human," Donna adds.

The High Minister frowns. "A child of Gallifrey…that is plain enough, and Time Lord you must be, to have escaped the destruction. But you present me with no lineage, no titles, and no true name. 'Doctor' cannot be the name you bore when you stood in the Panopticon, and received the mark of Rassilon in your blood."

I_Oh, that was a mistake/I_, Donna thinks. She has a rapidly-growing list of Things the Doctor is Touchy About. Being asked for his real name is in the top five. Twice.

And, yeah, the ambient temperature drops about ten degrees as he speaks. "'The Doctor' is my name now. Has been for many, many years. And 'Time Lord' is title enough."

"Enough for the Acknowledgement of Equals?" Donna hears the quiet challenge beneath the words. _Idiot. You're just shoving your foot in deeper. _

The Doctor sighs. "Your sort always have to make life complicated, don't you?" he murmurs, half to himself. "I do have other titles, High Minister. You wouldn't like most of them. You really wouldn't." He smiles, and it is like winter sunlight, with no warmth in it. "I am former Lord President of the High Council of Time Lords. This old head – well, not exactly this one, it was four or five regenerations ago – has worn the Matrix Crown of Rassilon. How's that? Equal enough for you?"

Donna has met more than her share of snobs, egotists, and stuck-up bastards, but she's never met anyone with the Doctor's gift for cheery, off-hand arrogance.

The High Minister is silent for a long moment, then extends his cupped left hand, his eyes fixed on the Doctor. The Time Lord nods, as if in response to an unspoken question, then mirrors the gesture. Simultaneously, each man touches the other's right temple. They maintain the contact for no longer than three seconds, then pull back.

His face expressionless, Jrzek F'lall, High Minister of Paalgiou, leans forward, and begins the Obeisance of Respect in the First Degree. In that same instant, the Doctor halts him with an outstretched palm. He doesn't want to waste time playing these idiotic games of power and status. He just wants to know what is going on. The mental contact was brief and superficial; only meant to establish his bona fides. It also conveyed a sense of urgency, but he couldn't see more without trespassing. Like most members of telepathic species, the Doctor has strong feelings about privacy. Snooping is always rude and sometimes dangerous.

"What do you want, High Minister?"

Jrzek F'lall hesitates. "Shall we speak in private?" At the Doctor's nod, he continues, "You may leave your human here – the servants will attend to her."

"No!" Donna and the Doctor say simultaneously. The Time Lord continues, "We stay together, Donna and I."

The High Minister makes an off-hand gesture that Donna interprets as _She's not important enough to argue about._ She'd love to give him a piece of her mind, but now is not the time. So, as they walk the short distance to a conference room lined with mirrors, she distracts herself by thinking about the Doctor. _He used to be president of the Time Lords? _ That seems so far-fetched. She can't imagine the Doctor as a politician – making speeches, following the rules, staying safely at home. _Maybe he was different before the Time War?_

Once seated at the elaborately carved table, the High Minister turns his full attention on the Doctor. His gaze is almost as intense as the Time Lord's. _Ancient civilization… nearly as old as Gallifrey_. "Doctor. In accordance with Convention Six of the Shadow Proclamation, I call upon you to honor the treaty of mutual aid between Paalgiou and Gallifrey."

The Doctor's eyes have gone very dark. When he finally speaks, each word is as deliberate and targeted as a laser. "Gallifrey is gone. Even the Shadow Proclamation would admit that interplanetary treaties are void if one of the signatory worlds ceases to exist."

One of the many problems with the TARDIS's translation circuit is that it doesn't do a bleeding thing about facial expressions and body language. Donna can't tell if Jrzek F'lall is amused, horrified, annoyed, or thinking about his dinner.

"You don't need to remind me about the Time War, Doctor. We of Paalgiou honoured our obligations. Eighty squadrons of untranslatable ships were at Arcadia, and fifty more at the final defense of Gallifrey. None of them returned home. Four of those ships were crewed by kinsmen of my house."

Now Donna knows that Jrzek F'lall cannot read minds without touching. Otherwise, he would hear her mental screams of outrage. _Don't you _dare _start whinging about your cousins or uncles or whoever. He lost _everyone_. __His whole planet is gone, you stupid git._ The only reason that she doesn't scream this aloud is because it would hurt the Doctor.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," the Time Lord says with genuine regret, and Donna wants to scream at him now. _It is not your fault. I know it's terrible, being the only one left, but it is not your fault. _

"They journeyed into death with honour, as befitted their names and houses," the High Minister says curtly, "but I did not bring you here to speak of the past, Doctor. Paalgiou is in peril now, and only a Time Lord can save us. The Hrul have returned."

The Doctor shakes his head emphatically. "Impossible. The Hrul were vanquished aeons ago. Rassilon removed them from your world and destroyed them utterly."

"You are wrong, Doctor. Rassilon removed the Hrul from Paaligiou, but he only imprisoned them. I believe that he wished to keep them as a possible weapon against his enemies."

"That would be madness. No one could control the Hrul well enough to use them as a weapon – not even Rassilon."

Donna can't keep silent any longer. "You need to back up a couple of pages, Doctor. Who is Rassilon and what are the Hrul?"

Both men start at the sound of her voice. The Doctor seems to have forgotten that she was present; the High Minister looks astounded. _Like he's an ambassador visiting Buck House, and one of the Queen's corgis asked his opinion on global warming._

"Rassilon was a Time Lord – the first and greatest of us all," the Doctor says bleakly. "He created much of the basis of our civilization. The Hrul are entities from another dimension. They only partially exist on the physical plane, which makes them hard to detect and harder to capture."

"They sound like intergalactic midges. What makes them so terrible?"

"The Hrul are mnemophages," the Time Lord replies. "They eat memories."


	3. Once Upon a Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 3: Once Upon a Time**

**Chapter 3: Once Upon a Time**

**in which Donna learns more about Rassilon, and the Doctor reads a fairy tale.**

"Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life."

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

Donna has seen many strange things since she first met the Doctor: lava monsters; creatures of living fat, telepathic aliens that carry their brains in their hands. She deals with it all the same way that she deals with being the new temp in a strange office. In either case, there is a pecking order to be learned, customs to be followed, and dangers to be avoided. Whether she's facing murderous soothsayers with knives or water-cooler casanovas with roaming hands, it's all part of the job. You just have to watch and listen, and ask the right questions of the right people.

"So, how can something eat memories?"

The Doctor looks distracted. "Donna, I don't have time right now to explain fourth-dimensional quantum biology. Sorry."

Jrzek F'lall looks at her. "And this creature is the _sarthain_ of a Time Lord? A primitive from a Class 5 planet? There are Paalgi of the highest houses who would vie to be your _sarthain_, Doctor – to travel, to learn, and to serve."

"For somebody who wants a favour, you're very free with the insults, Sunshine," Donna says with more calmness than she feels. "If you need a Time Lord to help you, it's a bit daft to bad mouth the only one in the neighbourhood." The High Minister looks sour; the Doctor, quietly amused. "I guess you only meant to insult me – primitive human and all that – but you just told the former Lord President of Gallifrey that he's either stupid or mental or has really bad taste in companions."

The High Minister looks gobsmacked; the Doctor is still smiling, but the amusement is now mixed with affection, and with pride. "I only travel with the best." He springs to his feet. "Right. There's work to be done. Allons-y!"

…..

Donna rubs a hand over her forehead. They've been in the Paaligiou Imperial Archives for hours now, researching mnemophages. Actually, the Doctor has been doing all of the research while she alternately sits and paces. She tried to help at first, but even the data files that the TARDIS can translate for her are still too technical for her to understand. She could go back to the TARDIS, or up to the suite of rooms that has been set aside for them at the Palace. She's not going anywhere. She needs to keep an eye on the Doctor. There's something upsetting him. He's working with a feverish intensity that seems out of proportion to the situation.

She decides to see if she can find information – not for the Doctor, but for her. The Archives' databank is huge, and it can't all be technical stuff. If she pokes around a bit, maybe she can find an intergalactic Wikipedia, or the Paalgi equivalent of _The Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia__._ It takes half an hour, trying different combinations of key words, and the information turns up in a very unexpected place. Donna reads it through twice before showing her find to the Doctor.

"Donna, I'm over nine hundred – I think I'm just a little too old for fairy tales." Nevertheless, his eyes skim down the screen. She can tell the exact millisecond when he sees the title: _Rassilon and the Memory Monsters__._

He is motionless and very pale. "Doctor? Are you all right?" It's a stupid question, she knows, because clearly he isn't all right, but she has to say something.

"Yep. Course I am. Just thinking deep thoughts. Deep thinker, that's me. Verrry, verrry deep. This explains why I wasn't finding any information. The Time Lords went through the technical and historical sections of the archives, and purged all the relevant stuff, but they didn't think to look at children's literature. You know, there's a lot more to fairy tales than meets the eye. The Brothers Grimm – now, there were a couple of blokes who knew a few things about aliens—" He's gabbling at that million-words-a-minute pace that means his mouth is on autopilot while his mind is elsewhere.

Donna tries to gently tug him back to the conversation. "So, Rassilon did imprison the Hrul instead of killing them?"

"Looks that way," the Doctor says. "The story, being written for kiddies, tries to make out that he was being merciful."

"Wasn't he?" The Doctor doesn't talk much about his lost world – no surprise there – but she's gotten the idea that it was one of the most fantastic civilizations in the Universe. Like ancient Greece, Egypt, imperial China, and Renaissance Italy all rolled into one, with large dashes of Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Mr. Spock thrown into the mix. Magnificent and brainy and very, very ancient. "You said he was the greatest Time Lord ever."

"Oh, he was, he was. Rassilon was a genius, even by the standards of my people. He invented time-travel, perfected stellar engineering and transdimensional mechanics – doesn't mean that he was a nice person, 'cos he wasn't. He was devious, arrogant, obsessive, and completely ruthless. Very scary bloke."

_A bit like you__,_ Donna thinks, though she doesn't say it aloud. The man standing next to her – _man, yeah, but not human, even though he looks like one_ – is really two people. On the surface is the Doctor. He's impulsive and curious, a wanderer whose sharp edges have been softened by loneliness and loss, and by years spent in the company of humans. He enjoys Elvis, Shakespeare, yo-yos, marmalade, and saving planets. The Doctor is real, not a mask or façade, but at the core of him is another person, born on another world and shaped by its culture and values. At the core of the Doctor is the Time Lord who conceals his true name. The Time Lord is detached and analytical, certain of his authority and his right to dispense life and death, with an intellect as dazzling as a supernova – and equally as dangerous.

Take the Time Lord and strip away the Doctor. Strip away the sense of humor, the compassion, the willingness to admit that he needs someone. Add a large dose of political ambition, scientific single-mindedness, and a disdain for any race other than his own… She remembers the cold, remorseless being who destroyed the Empress of the Racnoss and all of her children. He had terrified her, even though he had acted to save Donna's life, to save all of humanity. What would he have been like, if he had been moved only by self-interest? She represses a shudder.

"He trapped them in a 'magic box'," the Doctor says, continuing to read. "Blimey, that's helpful. Some kind of stasis container, maybe. It's not easy to imprison transdimensional entities. They tend to slip through the cracks. Have to figure out how to lure them in and grab them." He mutters something indistinct that sounds like it might be, "First catch your Hrul…"

"Further on, there's a bit about him using some kind of magical eye to seal the box," Donna interjects. "Magical – or maybe musical. They called it the Eye of—"

"—Harmony." The Doctor finishes the phrase a split second before she does.

In Pompeii, Donna saw people who were literally turning to stone. The Doctor is now doing a fair imitation of that transformation. All of a sudden she hates this situation, hates this world, hates the Paalgi – not because they're a bunch of stuck-up gits, but because they've put That Look back into the Doctor's eyes. The look that says he's remembering the world that he lost and the war he never talks about.

"You know, you don't have to be the one who sorts this," Donna says, knowing in advance that it's useless. As far as she can tell, the Doctor never met a problem that he didn't feel obliged to take care of – aside from fixed historical events. "Just because Rassilon was a Time Lord, it doesn't mean that you have to clean up his mess. It's not your responsibility."

"It is my responsibilty, Donna" the Doctor says, in a flat, emotionless voice so quiet that she can barely hear him. "I'm the one who let the Hrul out."


	4. Memory and Forgetfulness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 4: Memory and Forgetfulness**

**Chapter 4: Memory and Forgetfulness**

**In which the Doctor remembers things he would rather forget, other people forget things they would rather remember, and Donna learns more about Gallifrey.**

Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.

Samuel Butler, _The Notebooks of Samuel Butler_

_Inter-Planetary Shuttle_ Wittec's Glory, _Mridan System. Empire of Paalgiou_

Slodai Afkhan is happy. How can it be otherwise? Today marks his thirty-fourth year as Captain of _Wittec's Glory_ – and twice seventeen is a fortunate number, as everyone knows. And it is thrice seventeen years since he first set foot on the finest shuttle in the system. He was only a steward's boy in the beginning, fetching cups of krattah to the passengers. He had no parents, no influential relatives to sponsor him to a better post. And then old B'Tem down in Engineering had seen something in the skinny brat with no House or Guild, and had begun to teach him. How many nights had he gone without supper or sleep until he could rewire a power conduit to B'tem's exacting standards? How long had it taken before he could do the same task blindfolded? He had never bothered to count. He did not begrudge a single hour of the hundreds that he had devoted to learning every inch, every curve and crevice of his beloved.

His fingers dance over the nav panel as the _Glory_ approaches atmosphere. Reset circuit 2-sigma to manual. Throttle power down 12. Switch comm channel to Mridan VI Northern Hemisphere Traffic Control. A readout near his right hand is blinking rapidly, alternating between two sets of numbers. It doesn't look quite right. Should that be 6.7 or 9.7? Never mind. Time to reverse polarity on the— that green switch on top. B'tem always told him that it was important to do that before… something else.

This is the point at which his co-pilot usually starts to look eager, watching like a skreehawk for some minor error that he can point out to his senior. But the young fool is staring blankly ahead. _Probably has his mind on some planetside female, instead of his duty_, Slodai thinks. _The youth these days don't know how to concentrate on the task at hand_. A steady beeping interrupts his train of thought. It rises in tone and volume – most annoying – and Slodai scans the panel for the button that will silence it. And now there is a light, blinking in rhythm with the sound. A dazzling mauve light. _So beautiful. So very beautiful__._ There was something else he was supposed to be doing, but for the moment, he just wants to gaze into the light. And Captain Slodai Afkhan does just that, smiling, until the moment when _Wittec's Glory_ is swallowed up by the blaze of another kind of light.

…..

_Imperial University of Paalgiou, College of the Sciences, Mridan III_

Lord Sifran Renz, Professor of Analytical Transdimensional Geometry, stares at the text displayed on his touchpad: the rough draft of a paper to be submitted to the _Imperial Journal of Advanced Mathematics_. Something doesn't look quite right. The formula in the third paragraph makes no sense. It's as if someone else wrote those symbols – although that is impossible – because he does not recall seeing them before. And what is an infinite vector space? Surely he should know that? Surely he _used_ to know that? His hand reaches out to the commlink control. He is overtired. He needs a soothing drink. His assistant – what is the young man's name? – can bring him a mug of krat… krat… that spiced stuff. He presses a button, and it is the wrong button, because no soft tenor voice responds. He will have to go in person. Lord Professor Renz takes two steps away from his desk before collapsing in a heap on the office floor. A moment later his assistant is there, because although Lord Professor Renz has inexplicably forgotten how to walk, he has not forgotten how to scream.

…..

Paalgiou Imperial Archives, Paalgiou IV

"I'm the one who let the Hrul out."

Donna blinks. She can only half-guess what the Doctor's confession may mean. Asking him to talk about it will be disastrous, but ignoring it is not an option. "Right. That's good, then." She continues before the Time Lord has a chance to interrupt. "Since this Rassilon bloke has been dead for a million years, we can't ask him how he locked up the Hrul, so the next best thing is to understand how they got loose. So, what's this Eye of Harmony thing?"

The Doctor looks like Donna felt when her friend Kate talked her into joining a folk dance class: three steps behind, not sure how to catch up, and uncertain if it's even worth trying. Nevertheless, he falls into lecture mode. "The Eye of Harmony is— _was_ an artificial black hole created by Rassilon for my people to use as a power source for time travel. The TARDIS – all of our TARDISs – drew energy from the Eye. It was hidden in the Citadel on Gallifrey."

"You kept a black hole on your _planet_?"

"Yep. Safest place, really. Like keeping a generator locked up in a shed, so the neighbours don't nick the spare petrol."

The scary thing is, he believes that's a reasonable analogy. Donna isn't especially clever, but she grew up with an astronomy-obsessed grandfather, and she knows the difference between an asteroid and a tin of beans. She knows that a black hole the size of a speck of dust could devour the Earth, given enough time. That the Time Lords used a black hole – no, _created_ a black hole – as a power source is pretty staggering. See, the TARDIS doesn't boggle her mind as much as it should, because it's too much like magic. Bigger on the inside, travels in time and space… it's as unreal and fantastic as Aladdin's flying carpet or Harry Potter's broomstick. Black holes are real. People from Cambridge and CERN study them. They show up on A-Level science exams and BBC documentaries. And the Doctor talks about installing an artificial black hole in the middle of a populated planet as if it were a weekend DIY project.

_"You scare me to death,"_ she'd said at the end of their first adventure together, when she'd refused to join him in the TARDIS. He'd saved her life more than once, and she couldn't think of anyone she trusted more, but he _had_ been bloody terrifying. The more that she learns about him, the more terrifying he seems… and oddly enough, the more she trusts him.

Aloud she says carefully, "So when your planet was destroyed, the Eye of Harmony went with it?" Gallifrey burned, the soothsayer had said in Pompeii, though he didn't say how. Could a black hole even be affected by fire?

One look at the Doctor, and Donna wishes she could take back the words. His face is so blank that it makes granite look expressive. "You have it backwards, Donna. It was the destruction of the Eye that caused Gallifrey to burn." For a moment, hearing his cold voice, she is back in the tunnel beneath the Thames, watching the Racnoss perish in fire and water. "It was the end of the Time War. We were losing. The mightiest civilization in all of creation, and we were losing. The enemy ships just kept coming. And we knew that once they got the Time Lords out of the way, they were going to slaughter every other sentient species in the Universe."

She wants to stop him now, stop him saying the terrible words that she knows are coming, but she can't hold them back any more than she could have held back the deadly floodwaters of the Thames.

"We created a weapon. The details don't matter, except that the major components had to be controlled by two Time Lords who had been through the Presidential induction ceremony, and could link mentally to the devices. There were only two of us left who could do it: the current President… and me. The President said that she needed to be in the Citadel, to get everything ready at that end. The other part of the job called for some tricky flying in and out of the Vortex. Ro— the President hadn't piloted a TARDIS for a few centuries. I didn't argue." He is facing in Donna's direction, but his dark eyes are not seeing her, not seeing anything on _this_ planet. "No one was going to survive, no one could possibly survive, but whoever was in the Citadel would have the quicker death. Right in the heart of the firestorm."

Donna doesn't say anything – can't say anything – but one soft gasp slips out, and then the Doctor is looking at her. "Remember Vesuvius?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "That was _nothing_. An ember, a tiny spark. When the total focused energy of the Eye of Harmony was converted and released, everything burned. Everything and everyone. Except me, and I'm still not sure how that happened. I think the TARDIS must have zigged instead of zagged in the Vortex." His shrug dismisses his survival as uninteresting and unimportant. "A few nanoseconds after the Eye exploded, the Hrul were escaping into the gaps between dimensions. It's taken them a few millennia, but now they're coming home to Paalgiou. And they're hungry. So, yeah, it's my responsibility to get them sorted."


	5. Friendship Overrules Etiquett

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 5: Friendship Overrules Etiquette  
> ** **In which the Doctor explains about the Hrul, and Donna stops to smell the flowers.**

**Chapter 5: Friendship Overrules Etiquette  
** **In which the Doctor explains about the Hrul, and Donna stops to smell the flowers.**

The rules of etiquette, though stringent as regards acquaintances, have little or no application as regards intimate friends; friendship overrules etiquette.

_Manners and Rules of Good Society, Or, Solecisms to be Avoided  
_By A Member of the Aristocracy, London, 1888

On her fourteenth birthday, Donna received a book from an elderly cousin entitled _Modern Manners for Young Ladies_. She actually read it – that is, she and her friends took turns reading bits aloud in the poshest tones they could manage, while the rest laughed hysterically. She remembers there were sections on dating, how to behave at a job interview or a formal tea party, and how to introduce a "special young man" to one's parents.

It's been more than a few years since she last read _Modern Manners_, but Donna remembers it clearly. She is quite sure that it did not have a section entitled "What to say when your best mate admits that he destroyed his own planet".

_Oh God. Oh dear God._ At first – and later, she will be ashamed of this – she is horrified. _How could he _do _that? _ Next, she is furious. _How could they _ask_ him to do that? _Her mind flits back to the cave under Vesuvius. _"That's the burden of the Time Lord, Donna." _How much had she added to his pain on that trip, urging him to break the rules to save strangers, when he could not save his own? _Modern Manners_ can't help her with this problem. There is no book in the whole bloody Universe that could possibly help her with this problem.

He is looking at her, waiting. Underneath the guilt and the self-condemnation there is… what? Fear of what she'll say? No. Something calmer than that. Resignation. _He thinks I'm gonna hate him_. Fat chance. She's not going to say one word to increase his burden. On the other hand, words of comfort won't do much good. _Might as well spit on a bonfire_. She winces. Not the best metaphor.

"She must've had a lot of trust in you, that President of yours." At the Doctor's startled glance she says, "Trusted you not to do a bunk, not to freeze or panic and make a huge mess of her plans."

"She always trusted me too much – more than was good for her."

"Ah. One of _those_," Donna says with a knowing smile. "The sort who always needs to have a man tell her what to do. Not too bright, I suppose."

"Not too—" The Doctor's eyes are huge with astonishment and indignation. "She took a Triple First at the Academy! Most stubborn woman I've ever met – including you, Donna Noble. I don't think anyone else could have persuaded the High Council to act in time." He stares reproachfully at Donna, who pretends not to notice.

"In time for what?"

The look on the Doctor's face says he knows exactly what Donna is trying to do. "In time to prevent the enemy from destroying the rest of the Universe." He turns away. "There should have been another way."

"Maybe there wasn't one," Donna says softly.

"I should have thought of something," he snaps, and follows with several words that the TARDIS can't – or won't – translate. He leans forward, arms braced on the table, head bowed.

Even if she could think of words, they would probably be useless. She places a tentative hand on his arm with just enough pressure to let him know that she is there.

He takes a deep breath, straightens, and she can see that his face is impassive again. The Great Wall of Gallifrey is back in place. "Right, then. I think we've got everything we can find in the Archives, at least for now. Time to go for a walk. Nothing better to clear cobwebs out of the mind than a good walk in the fresh air. Do you know that the gardens of the Imperial Palace are famous in three galaxies?"

Donna gets the message. _Topic closed. _"Gardens. Right. They don't have any dangerous alien flowers, do they?" she says suspiciously. "No carnivorous petunias or flesh-dissolving carnations?"

"Certainly not! Honestly, Donna, where do you get these ideas?"

…..

The Imperial Gardens prove to be lovely to the eye and soothing to the spirit. Donna feels her own mood rising as she stands on a low stone observation platform, overlooking over a huge flowerbed planted with two different varieties of the same flower. Like most of the other gardens she has seen here, this one is arranged in a geometric design that might not look too out of place at a stately home back in England. It looks a bit like an upside-down apple – a purple apple – with a yellow sort-of-spiral pattern inside it. She stands motionless, allowing the colours and the shapes and the scent – a bit like cinnamon – to fill her senses.

The Doctor climbs the six steps to the platform, and stands beside her in companionable silence. His face is still guarded and closed, but she can tell from the set of his shoulders that he is feeling calmer.

"They're amazing, these gardens," she says. "My mum would flip over these – she loves flowers, but she's got a brown thumb. Even killed some silk daffodils, once."

His eyebrows arch in a wordless invitation to explain.

"She had a bunch of them in a vase in the kitchen, and one day they got pushed too close to the cooker."

"Caught on fire?"

"Nah. She was boiling eggs, and the steam—" Donna bends her elbow so her right forearm is pointing stiffly upwards. Abruptly, her fingers flutter, and her arm flops down to hang at her side. "I told her that having them in the kitchen was daffy." She chuckles at her own wit.

The Doctor's eyes widen. "Oh, that's brilliant, absolutely brilliant."

Donna starts to say that she didn't think it was _that_ funny, when she notices that the Time Lord is ignoring her and staring at the flowerbed. "Do you see that?" he demands.

"Yeah, flowers. Noticed them, thanks. Are you listening to me, Spaceman?"

He jabs an emphatic finger, just in case she has somehow managed not to notice a garden the size of a football field. "That pattern is a Trojeborg."

"A what?"

"A Trojeborg," he repeats. "Caertroia? Jatulintarha?"

"Speak English. Eng-lish," she says with elaborate slowness, as if he is a dim-witted foreign waiter at a holiday resort.

"It's a unicursal labyrinth pattern. Very ancient. They're found on planets all over the cosmos. On Earth they're laid out with stones, carved into cliffs, that sort of thing. The ones in Britain – mostly gone now – were cut into turf. I must say, I've never seen one done in flowers. Very fetching. The Earth names mostly translate as 'Troy Town'. For some odd reason, you humans associated labyrinths with the city of Troy."

She seizes at something familiar-sounding. "Troy? The one with Brad Pitt? And the weird-looking giant horse?"

The Doctor squuezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in pain. "Thirty-one centuries of literature and history, and all you can think about is three hours of your incredibly brief life wasted in a cinema."

"Three hours with Brad Pitt is never wasted, beanpole."

"Achilles didn't look anything like Brad Pitt, I promise you."

Before Donna can ask how the hell he knows _that_, the Doctor is rambling again through archaeology, semiology, paleosociology, and a bunch of other ologies that she can't pronounce, let alone understand. "—and in Sweden, the local fishermen believed that the laybrinths could be used to trap the smågubbar, evil spirits who would otherwise follow them out to sea and cause bad luck—"

Donna gives him a full two minutes before jabbing an elbow into his side.

"Ow! Blimey! What was _that_ for?"

"That," she says severely, "was for being an inconsiderate git. If you must run your mouth, then say something useful. For starters, you never answered my question, before."

"What question?" he asks cautiously.

"How can something _eat_ memories?"

He is silent for so long that Donna starts to think that he isn't going to answer. "Let's go over there." He leads her off the platform, through an archway in a tall, dense hedge, and into an enclosed garden with a fountain at its centre. There are benches facing the fountain, and they seat themselves on one.

"Most brain functions have two components: chemical and electrical." The Doctor's in lecture mode now, but he's not just spouting information to show how clever he is. He's actually talking to her, and watching her closely for reactions. "The brain is constantly sending messages all over the body. The transmission form depends on the kind of message it is, but most of it is some combination of electrical and chemical." He taps a finger lightly against her forehead. "Busy place up there, even in primitive species—"

"Oi! I've had enough insults today."

"—primitive species like hedgehogs, and cows and bush-tailed kniffles," he says, managing to look offended and triumphant at the same time. "In sentient beings like yourself, Donna Noble, there is also a psychic component. That's mostly reserved for the higher brain functions. Not much psychic stuff going on when your brain talks to your liver or your spleen."

"Like when the sink in the office loo is bunged up?" Donna suggests. "Nobody sends the janitor an email. They give a shout, or they phone his mobile."

The Doctor beams at her. "Right you are! Now, the psychic stuff is associated with complex thoughts and memories, and it generates a special energy. That energy, plus the electrical and chemical components, form the framework of memory storage. The species that can detect that kind of energy are mostly the ones that generate a lot of it themselves. They're either psi-sensitive—"

"Like the Ood?"

"Yeah, like the Ood. Or they're very, very intelligent, like the Reticca; or they're both, like, ohhh… me, for example."

Donna rolls her eyes. "If that ego swells any more, Spaceman, it's gonna explode."

"Now who's being insulting? If I'm a genius – and I most certainly am – and I'm a bit telepathic, why shouldn't I say so?"

Donna is fairly sure that _Modern Manners_ had something to say about bragging. Then again, it was written for humans. Maybe people on Gallifrey used to announce their IQ scores as casually as saying "Good Morning".

"The Hrel aren't sentient. They're mindless parasites. They can detect this kind of mental energy, they're attracted to it, and they absorb it. You weren't too far off when you compared them to midges."

"So… they don't really eat the memories…" Donna says slowly, working it out. "They eat the psychic stuff, and the frame that holds the memories together falls apart."

"Yes! Exactly! Donna Noble, you are fantastic, you are."

"So, how do you… catch something like that?" She was going to say "kill", but is afraid of the Doctor's reaction. Besides, "catch" is the first step, whatever they do with the little monsters.

"Rassilon only knows," he says gloomily.

"Can't you ask him?" She sees the frown forming, and hastily adds, "I don't mean going back. I know you can't. I mean like with a séance. Or a ouija board."

"A séance?" His eyes look ready to fall out. "Blimey, Donna, have you gone bonkers? Don't tell me that in the 21st century, you can possibly—"

"There have been scientific studies done, you know," she informs him.

"Where did you read that? In the _Daily Sport_? Right next to the article about Elvis Presley working at a Tesco in Leeds?"

She sputters with indignation. "You're an alien! A blooming _psychic_ alien! How can you not believe in ghosts? Nobody on Mars ever had a chat with Aunt Edna after she passed away?"

"I am not from Mars—" he says automatically, and then his face lights up like a million-watt bulb. "Donna Noble, you are a genius! You are magnificent!" He flings his arms wide. "I could kiss you!"

Donna jumps up from the bench. "Whoa there, Space Boy! Don't get carried away." She says the second sentence to his rapidly retreating back, because he's heading out of the fountain alcove and down the garden path as fast as his long legs can stride. "Wait up! Where the hell are you going?"

He doesn't slow. "TARDIS. Need to get some supplies. You've given me the key to this problem, Donna Noble – you and Aunt Edna!"

_tbc_


	6. The Arithmetic of Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: The Arithmetic of Memory

Chapter 6: The Arithmetic of Memory

"To divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory"

William Shakespeare, _Hamlet_

Donna runs after the Doctor, and nearly collides with him when he abruptly stops and turns. He pulls a small notebook and a biro out of his pocket, scribbles furiously for a moment, then hands the sheet of paper to Donna. "I'll get to the TARDIS faster on my own. I need you to give this note to the High Minister. It's a list of supplies. Give it to him in person – if you hand it off to a servant, it'll take too long to reach him."

She takes the paper. "And how do I find His High and Mightiness?" she grumbles, but the Doctor is already out of earshot, running at full speed. Looking down at the paper, she sees a jumble of alien script. Not Gallifreyan – it looks nothing like the characters that appear on the TARDIS's console monitors.

Once inside the Palace, she approaches the first guard she sees. "I need to speak to the High Minister right away. I have a message from the Doctor."

The guard looks at her for a long moment before replying. "Give me the message, _ehkak_, and I will see that His Magnificence receives it."

Donna doesn't know what _ehkak_ means, but she's willing to bet that it isn't "Honoured Guest". _I don't have time for this, you idiot!_

In every group of humans there is a pecking order. Doesn't matter if it's the House of Commons, the Hounslow Ladies Bridge Club, or the shipping department of P.L. Travers Ltd. As a temp, Donna is used to walking into a new office and having to suss out who's who. One thing she knows: secretaries and assistants get their status from their bosses. They may both take dictation and do filing, but the secretary to the V.P. of Marketing ranks way above her sister who works for the Loading Dock Foreman. It's probably been that way for centuries. She remembers watching some costume drama in which the maid to the Countess of Whatsit refused to sit at the same table below-stairs as the maid who worked for Mrs. Thingummy-Smythe.

Donna is willing to bet that the same principle is true for aliens. She draws herself up to her full height and fixes the guard with an icy stare. "Listen, Sunshine. I am _sarthain_ to the Doctor. You know – the Time Lord who's going to save your empire? He isn't going to save anything unless I get this note to the High Minister. _Now_." She isn't sure what _sarthain_ means, or why the TARDIS doesn't translate it, but it has to be something like "assistant".

The guard looks dubious, but more respectful. He summons a superior. Donna repeats her demand in an even snootier tone. It takes two or three more hops up the food chain before she is standing in front of Jrzek F'lall. She inclines her head, trying for a gracious nod. "High Minister. The Doctor asked me to give you this note. He's gone to the TARDIS to get some equipment."

Jrzek F'lall scans the note. A wave of his hand brings servants running. Orders are given, messages sent. He looks at Donna. "What does the Doctor plan to do?"

"Sorry, don't know. The Doctor likes his little surprises." Donna studies the High Minister. She still can't read his expression, but it's not too difficult to tell what he's thinking. "He'll fix it, you know. He's a bloody genius. Just don't tell him I said that. He's already too vain by half."

The High Minister studies her. "You are not a scientist. What do you do for the Time Lord?"

_I help him blow things up. I make him stop. I nag him to eat. Sometimes I think I keep him sane – well, as sane as an alien nutter can be._ Donna smiles serenely. "I listen to him, and I tell him when to shut up. It's a full-time job."

He does not reply. Another hand-wave, and a guard hurries over. "This one will escort you to the place where the Doctor will be." He looks away, not waiting for a response.

…..

The room is huge. Donna wonders what it was before it was emptied to provide the Doctor with a laboratory. A ballroom? Gymnasium? Conference centre? The vast expanse of the floor is tiled with three-foot squares of some polished white stone. It might be marble, if any marble is streaked with thread-fine veins of glittering silver. The TARDIS sits in one far corner, its battered wooden exterior looking more out of place than usual in this elegant environment. Servants and technicians bustle in and out, escorting metal pallets that float six inches above the floor, laden with fancy electronic equipment. She has no idea what any of it is, but there's enough alien _stuff_ for the Doctor to open his own junk shop.

And there he is in the centre of it all, darting around, coat-tails flapping, directing the placement of equipment. He may talk like a parrot, but he moves like a hummingbird. Even when he pauses in one spot, Donna swears that she can see him vibrating. Since there's nothing she can do to help right now, she takes a moment to observe him. She loves to watch the Doctor at times like this. Not because she fancies him – scrawny streak of alien nothing that he is – but because he is so overflowing with life and energy.

His energy is serious and focused. Then he sees her, and his face lights up with a smile that is pleased and welcoming and just a bit mischievous. _My best mate. I'll never have a better one. _Donna hurries over, dodging servants and pallets and crates. Scooting out of the way of one servant, she nearly trips over a heap of cables. A Paalgi technician in a yellow sarong grabs her arm and steadies her. "Careful, Gracious Lady."

She gives him a quick smile of thanks, then makes her way to the Doctor's side. "How's it going, then?"

"Brilliant. Just need a few more items, and I can start putting it all together."

"But what is it?"

His arm sweeps in a wide gesture that encompasses the entire room. "This, Donna Noble, is a Hrul trap – or will be."

"So, how does it work? What was that big revelation you got in the garden? C'mon, Alien Boy, share."

Now it's his gaze, dark and guarded, that sweeps the room. "Later."

_Too many people. _Donna nods. "Right. What can I do to help?"

He indicates a group of crates. Lifting the cover off one, he pulls out a flat disc, slightly larger than a dinner plate. It's greyish-blue, and it looks like metal, but when he hands it to her, it feels warm to the touch. "I need all of these laid out in a pattern. Follow this _exactly_." He hands her a sheet of graph paper.

"This looks just like that maze in the garden!"

"Similar, yeah. I told you it's an ancient pattern. This is what you might call a mathematical representation of a sentient mind."

"Whose mind?"

"Anyone. Doesn't matter. Whether it's your lot, or the Paalgi, or my incredibly magnificent self, the base template is the same."

Donna looks at him in open disbelief. "Are you actually saying that your mind is like mine?"

He moves his outspread hands up and down, like two sides of a balance scale. "Well, the essential structure. Like, oooh… houses. You've got your floors and walls, windows, doors, roofs – but one might be an enormous palace, and another one a tiny cottage." He sees her outraged expression and hastily adds, "A charming cottage. In the Lake District. With a lovely garden. And one of those little gnomes, with a red hat."

"You are making even less sense than usual. You're not just mixing your metaphors, you're putting them in a blender and turning them to mush. What are these things—" She points to the blue discs. "—and what do they do?"

"AECs – ambient etheric capacitors. Think of them as a special sort of battery. They're gonna power a net that will contain the Hrul." He starts to spout technical details, and she stems the flood with one look.

"You go and do your bit, Doctor, and I'll build you a maze. Could do with some help, though." Donna looks around, and spots the Paalgi in yellow who saved her from falling on her face. "Oi! Gimme a hand here?"

He trots over, and performs one of those elaborate bows. "Gracious Lady. How may I assist you?"

She explains quickly. "I'll do this side, you do the other, and we'll meet in the middle, all right?"

"Yes, Gracious Lady."

"None of that. Call me Donna. And you are?"

"Gher Besif."

"All right, Gher. Let's get to it."

They work in silence for an hour, using the floor tiles as their grid. It's a slow process – they have to stop often to check their work against the diagram. This pattern is larger and more elaborate than the one in the garden, and has thirteen loops instead of seven. When it is finally finished, Donna looks at it with a mixture of satisfaction and amazement. The blooming thing is nearly as wide as a football pitch.

She straightens her aching back, and wipes her damp forehead. The Paalgi like to keep their buildings at the temperature of a warm spring day. She hadn't noticed that before, when they were just sitting around. "Gher?"

"Yes, Gracious La— Donna?"

"How do I get something to drink around here? I'm perishing from thirst." Normally, she'd just pop into the TARDIS, but the door is ajar, and the Doctor is fiddling with thick cables that run from the console out to a large device with many buttons and blinking lights.

"I will send a servant."

"Get something for yourself – and for the Doctor, too. Silly git doesn't think about minor details like that when he's working."

"But he is a Time Lord," Gher protests.

"Yeah, that just means that he's more stubborn than us mere mortals about taking proper care of himself." Donna replaces the lid of an empty packing crate, seats herself, and gestures for the Paalgi to do the same. "So… what do you do around here, Gher Besif? I mean, other than carrying equipment and keeping visitors from falling on their faces."

"I am a senior student at the Imperial University." He explains about his studies. Donna can't follow all of it, but he seems to be a graduate student in engineering.

The servant returns with three tall glasses of something fizzy. It's the deep blue-green colour of a tropical lagoon, and it tastes like raspberries. Donna grabs two glasses and walks briskly in the Doctor's direction. "C'mon, Gher. Don't dawdle." She gets the Time Lord's attention by standing between him and the equipment he was heading for. "Oi! Spaceman! Take a break for a minute. Wet your whistle."

The Doctor takes a sip. "Oh, that's gorgeous. I haven't had threnakh juice in a couple of centuries. Nothing like it." He glances at Gher. "Who's your friend?"

Donna introduces Gher. The young Paalgi begins to bow, but the Doctor raises a hand. "Let's go by life-pod rules, why don't we? All equal in the face of imminent disaster." He gestures at his collection of gadgets. "Tell me, Gher Besif, what do you think of my thingummy?"

The Paalgi speaks hesitantly at first, then louder as he gains confidence. Donna doesn't understand most of it, but she can tell that the Doctor does, and that he is impressed. He waggles his eyebrows. "Brilliant! Go away, Gher Besif, and come back in twelve hours. When the ambient etheric capacitors are charged, I'll need some help. Off you go!"

Gher stammers his thanks, and backs away, as if leaving the presence of royalty. All the other Paalgi left when the unloading was done, so Donna is finally alone with the Doctor.

"Time for explanations, Doctor. What was that bit in the garden about ghosts and Aunt Edna?"

The Doctor sets his glass down, then leans against the TARDIS. His face has gone expressionless. "In your time, humans can record sounds and images, store them, play them back. Holiday on Ibiza, football match, birthday party. Years later, pop the storage device into the computer or the telly, and there's little Jimmy, two years old again, and trying to eat his party hat. More advanced technology can record memories – copy them directly from the mind. And with really amazing technology, you can record someone's complete life experiences just before the moment of death, and upload them to a interactive cybernetic environment." He studies his white trainers. "The Time Lords had really amazing technology."

Donna stares. "They put dead people's minds into a computer?"

"Nope," the Doctor says, shaking his head. He still isn't looking at her. "Not the whole mind. Not the consciousness. Just the memories. The collected memories of thousands of Time Lords, woven together to form an artificial intelligence. These were stored in the Amplified Panatropic Computer Network. The APC Net could be accessed by the President of the High Council through a virtual reality called the Matrix."

Donna opens her mouth, but before she can speak, the Doctor interjects, "No, _not _ like the movie." He gulps down the rest of his juice and sets the glass aside. "According to legend, Rassilon created the Matrix. He also created two devices that the President could use to enter it. One was the Matrix Key. The other—"

The Doctor bends down and retrieves something white with blue and red markings. It's a Tesco plastic carrier bag, looking surreal in these alien surroundings. From the bag he removes a circlet of some dull gold-coloured metal, set with faceted yellow gems. "The other was the Crown of Rassilon."

_tbc_


	7. An Uninvited Guest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter 7: An Univited Guest, in which Donna is insulted and the Doctor takes up basket-weaving.**

**Chapter 7: An Univited Guest, in which Donna is insulted and the Doctor takes up basket-weaving.**

"Never take an uninvited friend to a ball or dancing party without previously asking permission."

_Hand-book of Official and Social Etiquette and Public Ceremonials at Washington: A Manual of Rules, Precedents, and Forms in Vogue in Official and Social Life at the Seat of Government of the United States for the Guidance and Information of Officials, Diplomats, and Residents.  
_By De Benneville Randolph Keim. Washington, 1889.

Donna stares at the Crown. Created by Rassilon… it must be incredibly ancient. She thinks back to her first encounter with the Doctor. He'd shown her the formation of the Earth, with the Racnoss spaceship at its heart. The Time Lords had been at war with the Racnoss, so that meant the Crown could be even older than her planet. _Hold on… w__hy's it on the TARDIS?_ "If you've got this with you, is the Matrix—"

His face is still closed, impenetrable. "No. There was no way to take it off Gallifrey, and no point in trying."

Too late she remembers what he'd told her in the Archives: he hadn't expected to survive the destruction of his world.

"At… the end, everything had to be precisely coordinated. We used the Matrix, the President and me, to link with each other. The Key could only be used in the physical presence of the Matrix, so I took the Crown. Afterwards, I just put it away. Don't know why, really. Battered old thing – not exactly decorative. And it's not like it had a use anymore…"

Donna knows why. He hadn't wanted to keep it in sight, but couldn't bear to toss it away. The memories it held were too painful, and too precious.

"Forgot I still had it," the Doctor says, switching abruptly to a cheerful tone that fools neither of them, "until you reminded me, Donna Noble. You and Aunt Edna."

"What are you going to do with— oh my God! Did Rassilon lock the Hrul in the Matrix?"

The Doctor's beaming at her, even as he shakes his head. "Oooh, clever clogs! Good guess, but I don't think so. Someone would've noticed. But I'll bet he used something very similar."

"So… you're going to build another Matrix?"

His smile falters. "Nah. Take too long, even if I had all the equipment. Something much simpler, but I should be able to use the Crown as a control device, to spring the trap." His brown eyes scrutinize her. "Nothing else to be done until the AECs finish charging, so you may as well get some sleep. Allez dormir!"

…..

In the morning, Donna has a quick breakfast before venturing out of the TARDIS. The Doctor is nowhere in sight, but she sees that Gher Besif has returned. He's not alone. An elderly Paalgi in a yellow sarong trimmed with orange is walking in front of him.

The stranger looks at Donna. Without any word or gesture of greeting he says, "_Ehkak_, where is your master?"

"I haven't got one, grandpa," she retorts, "and who the hell are you? Oi! Gher, who's the fathead?"

Gher's voice, hesitant but clear, replies, "Donna, this is the Respected Lord Professor Tragan Vehik, head of the Department of Cybernetics at the Imperial University. He will be assisting the Doctor with the device."

"No, he won't be, actually." The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS, sipping tea from a chipped mug that reads _Souvenir of Blackpool_. "I said I wanted _you_ to help me, Gher. I didn't invite anyone else."

The Respected Lord Professor stares. "You would rather have the assistance of this student? This… stripling?"

"Yup." The Doctor strolls forward. "The young often have more flexible minds than their elders. They see new possibilities. Yesterday, Gher showed a great deal of insight into my contraption, even though he can't possibly have had any experience with Time Lord technology. Bright fellow, and he's got good manners. He was very, very polite to my _sarthain_." The Doctor continues to advance. He is smiling. "I value my _sarthain_, Tragan Vehik, I value her highly. Respect shown to her is respect shown to me. And disrespect shown to her..."

He's now standing directly in front of the professor, close enough that a human would consider it "in your face". He continues to smile, and his voice is soft and casual. One hand still holds the mug of tea; the other is tucked into his coat pocket.

Donna watches carefully. She's seen the Doctor deliver warnings with a smile before. This is different, but she's not sure why. He's being… protective_. _ Weird. They always take care of each other, as best mates should do, but it's not as though the geezer has hurt her or even threatened her – he's just been snarky. The Doctor always lets her deal with that sort of thing. He even likes to watch her take stuffy bastards down a peg or two. She turns sideways, and now she can see his eyes. They've gone fierce. If he were a cat— _A tiger, more like. _—he'd be flicking his tail right now.

Maybe the geezer isn't looking at the Doctor's eyes, or maybe he's just stupid. "You want the boy's help because he spoke pretty words to your _e__hkak_?"

"You will _not_ call her that. _Do you understand?_" The smile is gone, and though his voice is still soft, it is no longer casual or relaxed.

Donna has gone beyond confused to worried. _Nothing's gonna happen_, she tells herself. _He's not gonna smack an old geezer for being rude._ She takes a few steps forward so she can turn and face the Doctor. "Calm down, Space Boy."

"I can't let him abuse you," the Doctor snaps, and Donna isn't sure if he's speaking to her, to himself, or maybe to someone that only he can see. "Not again. It's my responsibility—"

"It's your responsibility to do the DIY thing and save the planet," Donna says. "Finish your tea; it's getting cold. Gher can walk the professor out, and when he gets back, you'll tell him how to help." She points at the outer door, giving both Paalgi The Look. "Off you go."

As soon as they walk away, Donna turns back towards the Doctor. "What was that about?"

"He wasn't invited." The Doctor waves a hand at the array of equipment beside the TARDIS. "It's not a penny arcade for anyone and his brother to play with."

Donna, hands on hips, glowers at him. "Don't give me that rubbish. You know what I mean – why blow your top because some geezer was acting like an arse?"

He arches one brow. "Shall I apologize for trying to protect you?" The Time Lord is back, in all his chilly detachment. For a moment, Donna wonders if he expects her to bow and scrape.

"It would make about as much sense as anything else you've been saying," she grumbles. She'd like to push him into a proper explanation, because something is definitely rotten in Denmark, but they have other priorities right now. "What's next? What can I do?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing yet. Gher and I have to build the trap. We won't need you until then."

…..

It turns out that "weave the trap" would have been more accurate. The Doctor flips a couple of switches on the control panel, and the AECs begin to hum. Donna looks at them, hundreds of slate-blue discs laid out in the divided-spiral pattern of the labyrinth. The hum grows louder and the AECs start to glow. A pillar of blue light springs up from each disc.

"Gher! Leave that setting just as it is," the Doctor says. "Allons-y!" He rushes over to the labyrinth, Gher at his heels. The Time Lord points a small device at the closest pillar of light, and points a small device at it. Slowly, the pillar bends into a tall, narrow arch. The top of it touches the disc diagonally opposite it. It vibrates slightly, like a spring held under tension. "Time to get it fastened. Sonic screwdriver. Now!"

The young Paalgi points the sonic screwdriver at the spot where the light-beam meets the disc. The Doctor lowers the device he used to manipulate the light. The arch shivers, but the connection at the base holds firm. The Doctor grins. "Brilliant!" He moves on to the next pillar. Again, he bends it diagonally across the pathway, and gestures for Gher to sonic the other end in place.

When he's gone all around the outermost ring, the Doctor begins to work his way back, starting from the opposite side of the path. Each new arch crisscrosses an old one. The labyrinth begins to resemble an upside-down basket, woven from thick strands of azure light.

The weaving takes hours. Donna watches, enthralled by the gorgeous, complex structure. She knows the Doctor is a builder and inventor and a bloody genius, but most of what he makes is slapdash and improvised and just plain odd-looking. What can you expect, after all, from a man who has a _bicycle pump_ hooked up to the control panel of his spaceship? But this thing, sculpted from light and energy into the shape of a living mind, is so gloriously beautiful that it almost hurts to look at it.

Donna has new standards of scenic beauty since travelling with the Doctor. Her first involuntary trip in the TARDIS showed her the heart of a supernova, followed shortly by the formation of the Earth, Since then she's seen sights that no human could imagine, in galaxies that are invisible from the world where she was born.

She looks again at this ethereal maze. It's a suitable place for faeries to play at hide-and-seek – gossamer-winged creatures out of the pages of an Arthur Rackham storybook. This fanciful thought amuses her for a moment, until she remembers what creatures will really be entering the maze – and what will happen if the walls of woven light cannot contain them.

…..

When the weaving is done, the Doctor flicks some levers on the power source. The strands of light begin to swell and thicken. "They've got to press together and form solid walls," he explains. "Can't have the Hrul slipping through the cracks. As soon as that's done, it'll be time to bait the trap."

"What will you use for bait?" Donna asks. She's imagining a high-tech generator sending out pulses of ultrasonic enticement, like a fancy version of those electronic thingummies they sell on late-night telly to kill flies.

Gher is looking up at the Doctor, also eager to learn another secret of Time Lord technology.

"Welllll…" the Doctor says vaguely, "It's pretty much like trapping any other predator. You just need to have some of its favourite food within smelling distance, and the more appealing, the better."

Donna freezes. The Hrul only eat one thing – memories, live and fresh from a conscious mind. And the older and more complex the memories are, the more appealing they are. Standing right in front of her, looking oh-so-unremarkable in his rumpled brown suit and glasses, is the most delectable banquet that the Hrul could ever dream of.

_tbc_


	8. Greater Evils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8: Greater Evils, In which Donna and the Doctor have an argument, with an intermission for soup.

Chapter 8: Greater Evils, In which Donna and the Doctor have an argument, with an intermission for soup.

"There are emergencies when it is right to risk health and life to save ourselves and others from greater evils."

_Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper_

Catharine Esther Beecher, New York, 1874

* * *

Donna turns to Gher Besif. "Sweetheart, I think we're ready for something to eat. Could you see about organizing some lunch?" She adds casually, "Take your time."

His head bobs in a gesture that is more than a nod but less than a bow, and he hurries away.

As soon as the young Paalgi is out of sight, she turns back to the Doctor. "I'm not going to ask if you've gone bonkers, Doctor, 'cos I already know the answer to that one. Setting yourself up as bait? Can't you record your brain, and use that instead?"

He shakes his head. "It would work as well as trying to catch a mouse with a photo of a piece of Stilton."

"And what do you expect me and Gher to do? Just slam the door shut and let the Hrul enjoy their afternoon tea?" In a shrill voice she mimics a conversation. "'What a lovely bit o' Time Lord you've got, Myrtle. Can't find _those_ in the shops any more. Where'd you get it?' 'Oooh, it just wandered in. Aren't we the lucky ones? And it's so nicely aged, too.'"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" he snaps. "I'm going to teleport out as soon as all the Hrul are inside. The teleport will 'slam the door' automatically. And you, Donna Noble—" A long finger stabs emphatically at her face. "You and Gher Besif aren't going to be anywhere nearby when that happens."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

"Ohhh no you don't. No. No. No. Thought we settled that back in Pompeii, Martian Boy. You and me, best mates. We stick together. Got that?"

"Donna… please." The unexpected 'please' catches her attention even more than the soft, weary tone of his voice. "It's got to be split-second timing. There's nothing you can do to help. All you'll do is distract me."

She sighs, then sighs again, as Gher Besif arrives with lunch, accompanied by five servants: two to carry the food, one to manage a floating pallet that holds a small table and three chairs, one to set the table, and two others to actually serve the meal.

The servants hover attentively. The Doctor tries to wave them away; they look nervous, but hold their ground. Evidently, in the rigid code of Paalgi etiquette, the only thing worse than disobeying a Time Lord is to allow such an august and mighty being to ladle his own soup.

Donna expects the meal to be full of awkward silences. Ha! If there's one thing the Doctor can do in any circumstance, it's talk. He tells stories of planets he's visited, planets he's heard of, and planets that almost certainly don't exist. In between, he asks Gher Besif about his studies; his life at the University; his plans for the future. The young student is shy at first, then becomes bolder, asking the Doctor about some technical gobbledygook.

Donna tunes out, sipping the pale orange broth garnished with bits of purple and blue herbs, which tastes much better than it looks. Her attention snaps back when she hears, "Doctor, how will you know when all of the Hrul have entered the trap?"

"I'll know," the Doctor replies in a careless, offhand way that has Gher nodding and does not fool Donna one little bit.

"Exactly how will you know, Doctor? I'm sure Gher will be _fascinated_ by the details."

The Doctor pulls a small device out of his pocket. "Not to worry! This will show me their location."

Gher hesitates. "Doctor? Isn't that a Kreltan-Sennik monitor? I thought those weren't accurate at distances shorter than fifty metres."

The Doctor tucks the device back into his coat. "Not fully accurate," he concedes, "but close enough. Now, tell me more about that project—"

"Stop right there, Doctor," Donna hisses. "Gher deserves a real answer. How are you going to know they're all in the maze?"

Once again, the Doctor waves at the servants, dismissing them. Perhaps it's the stern look that accompany his gesture, but this time they perform deep, graceful bows, then scuttle away. "I'll just be very careful. There's no other way."

"An isomeretic detection field would do it," Gher suggests. He turns to Donna. "Hrul are not visible to the eye, but they do interact with certain kinds of particles. We could spray a vapour charged with these particles. Any Hrul passing through the vapour would excite the particles, triggering an odiferous chemical reaction. A strong smell," he amends, seeing Donna's blank face.

"So, once the smell is gone, that means they're all inside?" Donna grins. "Move over, Doctor, we've got more than one genius here!"

She can see the rejection in the Doctor's face, even before he speaks. "Absolutely not. It's very clever, Gher Besif, but much too dangerous. Do you know how close you'd need to be?"

"I am not afraid," Gher insists, "and my life is mine to risk. I am not bound to any Guild; nor heir to my House."

"How much risk can it be, anyway?" Donna asks. "Doctor, if you're a bit of Stilton, Gher and me must be something like slices of cucumber. The Hrul aren't going to be interested in us if you're nearby."

"Too dangerous," the Doctor repeats.

"Not half dangerous, compared to what you're planning," Donna argues. "And what's going to happen if there are stragglers, and some of the Hrul get left outside? Even if you teleport out safely, it'll take hours to build another maze. Who will they be snacking on in the meantime?"

Gher rises from his seat, and bows in the Doctor's direction. "With respect, Most Gracious Lord—" He plunges on, heedless of the Doctor's wince. "Though I have been honoured to assist you, I am not under your hand. Do not deny me this chance to serve the Empire."

"He needs to do this," Donna says softly. "So do I. There are worlds at stake, not just this one, yeah?"

"Right," the Doctor says gruffly.

"You said it'll take split-second timing. So, unless you've got some Martian way of being in two places at once…"

The Doctor forces a smile. "Yeah, well… my people had laws against that sort of thing. Besides, I've got the magnificent Donna Noble and the splendid Gher Besif with me." He gives Gher brief instructions. "I need you back in ten minutes with those supplies. Off you go!"

* * *

The Doctor paces the stark white floor, and the eerie light of the labyrinth casts long blue shadows that pace with him.

Donna watches him, thinking of all the things she'd like to say – and knows that she won't. "Something I've been wondering about, Spaceman…"

He halts in mid-stride. His face flips through expressions like he's a telly, and an overactive teen is holding the remote. _Surprised. Annoyed. Apprehensive. Resigned. Impatient._ "Yeah?"

"What does _ehkak_ mean?"

The channel switches abruptly to _astonished_, pauses, then jumps to _suspicious_ and remains there. "Why?"

"'Cos I have a right to know what the blighters are saying about me. What does it mean?"

A long silence. "It means _pet_." He won't meet her eyes.

"_That_ again?" There's something in his silence that she doesn't quite like. "What does it really mean?"

He wrinkles his nose. "I told you."

She waits.

"Well, it does mean 'pet' in the sense of a domesticated semi-sentient being, but one that's been acquired in… errr… an irregular fashion. If you see what I mean."

"Oh, isn't that wizard! I'm not even a pet poodle, I'm a bloody stray moggie. With fleas."

This time, the silence tells her more than she wants to know. "Lovely. Absolutely lovely. Blimey, they probably wonder why you don't have me on a lead."

He studies her, the corner of his mouth twitching. "You might look very fetching in one of those little pink collars with rhinestones."

"Oi! Real diamonds, if you please."

The twitch spreads into a full smile. "Only the very best for Miss Donna Noble."

"Too right. When we're finished here, I want to go on a holiday. A proper holiday. A beach, maybe – or a spa. I'll be ready for some serious pampering."

The smile is now a grin. "I know just the place. Spa called the Leisure Palace. The planet is made of—"

But Donna doesn't get a chance to learn what the spa planet is made of, because Gher Besif has returned with a floating cart filled with large sealed cans, labelled in a script she can't read. There are also two sleek, silvery canisters with attached nozzles. They look like a cross between a fire extinguisher and some sort of _Star Wars_ superweapon. Gher inserts a flexible hose into the top of a can, and connects the other end to the rear of one of the "guns". He sets it down carefully, and begins to attach the second canister in the same way. "They will fill quickly," he assures her.

The Doctor pops into the TARDIS. When he returns, he is wearing a curved gold disk on his left forearm, held in place with a wide strap of black leather. The slender fingers of his right hand dance over it, scarcely touching. Rehearsing, Donna guesses. Then, from that same shabby Tesco's bag as before, he removes the Matrix Crown of Rassilon and places it on his head. It should look weird and out-of-place when worn by a man in a pinstriped suit. It should bring up images of corporate Christmas parties, and drunken executives wearing silly cardboard hats.

It does not. Perched atop the Doctor's head, it looks to be in the one place in the Universe where it belongs. And he— he looks ancient, and wise, and dangerous. He shuts his eyes for a moment, appearing to concentrate, and the large tawny gems on the gold circlet glow with an inner light. "Okay. The TARDIS is amplifying the signal – ringing the dinner bell, you might say. Gher!" Something small and metallic flies through the air, and the young Paalgi catches it automatically. "The Kreltan-Sennik monitor will give you enough advance warning to get the vapour-jets started."

"Yes, Doctor. We will be ready."

"I know you will." The Doctor pauses in front of the entryway to the labyrinth of blue light. "It has been a pleasure working with you, Gher Besif." The amber studs on the Crown glow brighter as he inclines his lean body in the Acknowledgement of Equals. "Keep an eye on my _sarthain_. She gets a bit reckless sometimes."

Donna calls out, "Oi! You be careful in there, Spaceman!"

The solemn face beneath the Crown softens. "Donna Noble. When you asked for a vocabulary lesson, I _thought_ you were going to ask about the important one – _sarthain_."

_Doesn't it just mean 'assistant' or something like that?_ "Yeah, so?"

"No time, now. Ask Gher." The Doctor vanishes into the labyrinth.

Donna adjusts the shoulder strap of her vapour-jet. "Okay… Gher, what exactly is a _sarthain_?"

His pale eyes widen. "You don't know? It means… an apprentice." He frowns, listening to an inner dialogue. "Yes, apprentice.. One who learns by example to perform the job of another."

She shakes her head. "That's rubbish. He's a _Time Lord_."

"And what is his job?"

"I dunno… travelling about, meddling – he saves _worlds_. That's what he does, Gher, he saves worlds."

"Then… saving worlds is the job you are learning to do, Donna Noble. Thank you for helping to save mine," Gher says, polite as always.

"I can't— I'm not— I'm just a _temp_!"

"I'm sorry, Donna Noble. That word is not translating. Perhaps you will explain it to me?" A gentle _ping_ comes from the monitor in his hand. "Ehh… later. The Hrul are here."

_tbc_


	9. Emergency Measures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 9: Emergency Measures

Chapter 9: Emergency Measures

It is a mark of extreme good breeding to be able to meet all emergencies calmly and without uncontrolled anger or excitement.

_Book of Etiquette_

By Lillian Eichler, Oyster Bay, New York, 1921

Donna has no more time to think about job descriptions. For one instant she blanks, but then her quick fingers – 100 words per minute! – are pressing the release keys on the vapour-jet. A fine, pale blue mist fills the air above her, merging with an identical cloud from Gher's canister. It is as odourless as bottled water. Her hand tightens on the nozzle of her vapour-jet. "Maybe we've been stood up," she says, forcing a laugh, and then she smells something sweet and insipid, like candyfloss.

She shouts, "Doctor! They're here! Get ready!" The woven-light walls of the trap may look and feel solid, but they don't block sound. The centre of the trap is less than thirty yards from where she's standing.

"Right!" The answering shout is clear and confident – which does not comfort her one little bit. There are far too many ways for this to go pear-shaped.

The teleport could fail. Unlike the maze at Hampton Court, with its many branching paths, this labyrinth has only one spiral route to the dead-end at the centre where the Doctor is waiting. If he can't teleport, the Doctor will have no way out that doesn't lead straight to the Hrul.

The first Hrul could reach the Doctor before the last ones are safely inside the trap. He told her that hive creatures like these _usually_ travel all clumped together. (In Doctor-speak, that means "sometimes".) He also said that the aetheric energy in the trap should slow the Hrul down "just like guppies swimming through golden syrup." He sounded very certain about that, but he always sounds certain about his plans, even when he's making them up as he goes along. She knows that he's never done _this_ before.

And that brings her to her worst fear: what if the trap doesn't hold? Genius, Time Lord, and all that, but it's been a million years since anyone's had to battle the Hrul. He's based this crazy contraption on scientific guesses, vague memories, and a bloody alien fairy tale. _A fairy tale that _you_ showed him_, an inner voice whispers_. If you hadn't done, he would've found a _proper_ solution. I'll bet Rassilon didn't do it this way._ Her clenched hands on the nozzle of the vapour-jet begin to shake. She loosens her grip, and does a bit of the slow breathing she learned in her first and only yoga class. (Sharyn Cooper, the lying cow, said it would help reduce her hips.) The Doctor's no fool about technical stuff. Rassilon probably _did_ do it this way, though from what she's heard, he would've convinced some other poor bugger to play bait.

"It'll be fine," she says. The sweet odour grows stronger. She had expected something different: foul, like a polecat; or harsh, like disinfectant. No reason to think that, she knows. It's just a chemical reaction, not how they really smell. And she has seen enough alien worlds to know that she can't always trust her senses. She thinks of the hideous Ood and their gorgeous singing, and those Pyrrtexian "daisies" that were really poisonous insects. Still, as the cloying sweetness fills her nose and mouth, she thinks that she may never eat candyfloss again.

Her hands ache slightly, even though she loosened her grip on the nozzle. How long have they been standing here? She's given up on wearing a watch – something about travelling in time seems to mess up the works. The Doctor, waiting in the heart of the trap, must know to the second how long it's been. He always knows. Time Lord ability, he says. Does it make the waiting easier or harder?

"Donna?" Gher Besik asks, "is the smell fading?"

"Yeah, I think it is." It _is_ fading, but is it gone yet? Is there still a trace lingering, or is that her imagination? She looks at Gher, sees his confirming nod. "Oi! Doctor! They're in!"

"Molto bene! I'm go—" His voice cuts off abruptly.

"Doctor? Is all well?" Gher calls.

"Doctor? You all right?" No answer. "Gher, keep spraying the stuff. I'm going to look around." Donna sprints to the far side of the labyrinth, then looks behind the TARDIS. No Doctor. She turns the key and looks inside the console room, even though it's supposed to be impossible to teleport into the TARDIS. Empty.

As she turns around, her heart skips a beat, but the person standing next to Gher is another Paalgi. Coming closer, she sees it's the crabby old professor who insulted her this morning. He doesn't notice her. He's staring at the labyrinth portal, which is still open. It's contracting, just like one of those little evening bags when you pull the drawstrings, but slowly. Much too slowly.

Gher mutters something that the TARDIS doesn't translate. The professor gives him a sharp look.

"Gher, I don't see the Doctor anywhere! Oh, God – what if he didn't get out?"

Lord Professor Tragan Vehik is holding a gadget the size of a deck of cards. "There is no corporeal lifeform in there," he says calmly. "And this would detect the Time Lord, living or not. Most likely his teleport overshot. With all these energies flowing, it would not be unusual. He could be as far as two kilometres away."

"And why isn't the bloody door closed yet?"

"Because the Hrul are carrying residual Vortex energy that interferes with the aetheric pulse frequency. Are you any wiser now, Human?"

He says "Human" like it's a dirty word, but Donna figures it's a step up from _ehkak_. "Tell me something useful, Methuselah. How can we get it shut faster?"

"We cannot."

"Any minute now, those Hrul will figure out that their gourmet lunch has gone missing, and they're gonna exit the restaurant. Can you do something about _that_?"

"I am considering possibilities."

"Oh, fat lot of help _that_ is! What are you doing here, anyway? Thought the Doctor told you to clear out."

"I am not here to assist the Doctor. I am here to assist my student, Gher Besik. Would not the Time Lord do the same for his— for you?"

"Yeah. All right, possibilities." Donna glares at the slowly shrinking portal, as if she could will it to close. "If we can't shut the door faster, can we do something to hold them back?"

Donna looks at Gher. He is still spraying mist into the air, and his gaze is fixed on the portal. "Gher? Have you got any brilliant ideas?"

He glances sideways at Lord Professor Tragan Vehik. "No, Donna Noble."

Hell! Must be one of those 'keep your gob shut in front of the boss' rules. _"Gher, spit it out. We haven't got time to play Twenty Questions."_

He looks again at the professor, as if requesting permission. The older Paalgi nods. "Respected Lord Professor, Donna Noble…we could possibly direct a flow of quedhin particles into the trap. It would not harm the Hrul, but it would annoy them, and might drive them back."

"Like turning a garden hose on an angry dog? Brilliant!"

"That is a possibility," the professor agrees. "It might also provoke them into attacking the source of the annoyance. That would be counter-productive. Still, it is an option worth reserving for emergency action, when all else has been tried."

"You don't call _this_ an emergency?" Donna demands.

"According to the few remaining records, the Hrul are no more sentient than a swarm of _kleh _flies," Tragan Vehik drones, as if in a lecture hall. "They are creatures of instinct. Once their feeding impulse is triggered, it will control their movements. It should take them some time to realize that the food they sensed is no longer in the vicinity. Only then will they attempt to exit the trap."

A hint of sweetness drifts into the air. "Okay, I'm officially declaring this a bloody emergency. Gher, can you get those whatchacallit particles going?"

"No!" the professor commands. "Save that for the very last, Gher Besik. There is a surer way to delay hungry beasts." He looks first at Donna, then Gher. "A primitive and a youngling – they would have to be hungry indeed to desire such scanty fare. I think you will be safe." He stoops slightly, then springs forward, hurling himself at the still-gaping portal of the labyrinth.

"Noooooo!" A man's voice howls, raw with outrage and fear. The Doctor has returned.

_tbc_


	10. The Sins of the Fathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10: The Sins of the Fathers, In which the Doctor is angry, and Donna talks about Christmas.

Chapter 10: The Sins of the Fathers, In which the Doctor is angry, and Donna talks about Christmas.

"The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children."

Euripides, _Phrixus (Fragment 970)_

Donna is already in motion. One hand closes on the loose, wrinkled skin at the nape of Tragan Vehik's neck. The other grabs at the folds of his sarong. Thank God, the fabric is like a heavy, textured silk – strong and not too slippery. The old professor doesn't fight her. Maybe he's distracted by the Doctor's shout, or maybe he's too shocked at being forcibly handled by a member of a lower species. She swings her body around, pulling the professor with her, so that she winds up between him and the still-open portal. At the same time, Gher – who is still spraying the chemical mist – moves to Donna's side, forming a wider barrier.

The Doctor is pelting across the vast white room, faster than Donna has ever seen him move. The Crown of Rassilon hangs on the crook of his left arm, swinging back and forth like a lady's handbag. As he stumbles to a sudden halt, two yards from the portal, he jams the Crown onto his head. It's crooked, and stray bits of his hair poke from beneath it at odd angles, but the amber jewels light up as brightly as before. He closes his eyes. His forehead creases, as it does when he's concentrating on a particularly complicated repair to the TARDIS console.

Donna releases her grip on Tragan Vehik. _He's not going to do anything stupid, now that the Doctor's here._ The Respected Lord Professor steps away from her, glaring, and smoothes his sarong and his dignity back into place. _Same to you, Sunshine. No need to thank me for saving your life. _ Donna whirls around to see what's happening.

The portal is smaller, though not yet closed, but a wall of blue light is rapidly forming just behind it, like a sheet of plywood covering a broken window from the inside. When the barrier is complete, the Doctor opens his eyes. The lights on the Crown wink out. "Oooh, that's an improvement," he says, a little too brightly. "Well done, Donna; Gher, you can stop spraying now." He pointedly ignores the professor.

Gher obeys, and looks from the labyrinth to the Time Lord in confusion. "Doctor, how did you— I thought— the Lord Professor said that the closing couldn't be accelerated."

"Quite right. First of all, he didn't have this—" The Doctor reaches up and taps a finger against the Matrix Crown. "—not that he could have used it; and second, I haven't closed the portal. I've just pulled some of the energy from the far end of the trap. The Hrul could push through the weakened section if they tried, but they won't, because _this _is where they detected prey. That's the good side of dealing with hive creatures – they tend to be predictable and rather stupid."

"What's the bad side, then?" Donna blurts out before she can bite back the words.

The Doctor's face twists into a grimace. "There tends to be rather a lot of them, and they're generally too stupid to know when they ought to give in."

After what is either a few minutes or an eternity, the portal shuts. The Crown lights up again as the Doctor redistributes the aetheric energy. "Right. That bit's done."

"So you've got them all sorted, have you?" Donna asks.

"Almost. This is temporary. The power from the AECs will hold for another twelve hours."

"But you'll have them sorted long before that, right?"

The Doctor smiles, but his gaze flickers in a way that makes Donna uneasy. "Of course!" he says cheerily.

"What will you do with the Hrul, Doctor?" Gher asks, his eyes bright with curiosity.

"Oh, just need to wrap them up snugly, and put them someplace out of the way. The hard part's over. All that remains is a little jiggery-pokery, and _voila_! But first… Donna? Could you pop into the TARDIS and bring me a transniodic oscillator? There should be one in the second storeroom past the Wardrobe."

"A what? Why can't you fetch it yourself? Have I got 'courier service' tattooed on my forehead?"

"A transniodic oscillator," the Doctor repeats, as if it's something as ordinary and obvious as 'a ham sandwich and a packet of crisps'. "Gher can go with you – he'll recognize one. I want to keep an eye on this." He jerks his chin in the direction of the trap. "Off you go!"

Donna gives him A Look, but decides to save her complaints for later. Besides, it'll be fun to see Gher's reaction to the TARDIS. For once, _she_ can be the old hand, showing off their amazing ship to a gawking alien.

…..

In the vast white room, there is a deep silence, except for the faint hum of the AECs. The Doctor can hear it clearly. He knows it's below the range of human hearing; he's not sure about the Paalgi. The Respected Lord Professor is old by the standards of his race – probably nearing two hundred – and his senses are not as sharp as they once were. The Doctor's senses are functioning perfectly. He can hear the pounding of his hearts and smell the faint musk of his own sweat. He can feel the muscle tension in his hands, which would be shaking if he weren't a Time Lord whose body is perfectly subordinate to his will. _If I'd come back even a few seconds later…_

The Doctor glares at Tragan Vehik. "I didn't spend all that time building _that—_" Once again, he indicates the glowing labyrinth. "—just so an old fool could kill himself in it."

The professor shrugs. "They were close to escaping, and you had not yet returned. A distraction was needed to delay them."

"You should have waited."

The Lord Professor gives a soft, wheezing laugh. "If I choose to give my life to safeguard my world, what is it to you? When was Gallifrey ever squeamish about its allies' blood?"

There are a million things that the Doctor wants to say in response to this, beginning with _"I am not 'Gallifrey'". _But of course, he is. As the last Time Lord, he has inherited sole responsibility for the web of Time. He has the obligation to mend leftover damage from the Time War, whenever possible. _Obligation or penance?_ He was a general during the War. He sacrificed more lives than could ever be counted; not just individuals or ships, but _worlds._ Entire civilizations vanished because of his decisions, obliterated from Time as if they had never existed. And in the end, so did his own.

He knows that Tragan Vehik isn't talking about the Time War, but about earlier conflicts. There were occasions when the Time Lords preferred to fight their battles indirectly, with allied worlds providing ships and troops in exchange for technology (not temporal technology, of course). When Gallifrey was wiped from the timelines, the Time Lords faded into legend. Only on the surviving allied worlds were they remembered as something other than myth. _Remembered with awe, with resentment, with respect or envy, but never, ever with fondness. That is our legacy._

What is that Earth proverb? Something about 'the sins of the fathers'? Gallifrey's prodigal son now symbolizes everything he'd hated most about his world. _If he's expecting Gallifrey at its worst, why should I disappoint him? _He fixes Tragan Vehik with his coldest stare. "You may give your life for any reason you choose. It would be preferable if your death served some useful purpose, but do as you please," he says in flawless Paalgi. The TARDIS's translation circuit can only do so much, and English just doesn't have the structural subtleties for finely nuanced insult. Gallifreyan does, but he saves that for private moments. He hasn't conversed in his birth tongue since the Ma— in a long time. "Please accept my apologies on behalf of my _sarthain_ for having inconvenienced you." His dry as dust tone is a perfect imitation of the stuffiest instructor at the Academy. It would even be funny, if there were anyone left alive who would understand the joke.

Lord Professor Tragan Vehik performs a bow which is so exact that he might have calibrated it with a micrometer. "Accept mine for having interfered with her duties. And now, since I am so inconveniently alive, is there some way in which I may serve the Empire by assisting you?"

The Doctor arches one brow. "I have to create a time-locked stasis field. Are you perhaps experienced in temporal mechanics?"

The Paalgi meets his gaze without blinking. Not intimidated or angry or defiant. Just… waiting.

_Right, then. Playtime's over. _ The Doctor looks at him appraisingly. "Cybernetics, right? I need a multi-phase power control unit that can handle variables of up to…" He rattles off the rest of the technical specifics.

If Paalgi had eyebrows, the professor's would be heading for the high, vaulted ceiling. "What power source will you be using?"

"Dunno yet. Rassilon used a captive black hole. Don't suppose you've got of those handy?" He adds lightly, "I've got eleven hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-seven seconds to think of something. Plenty of time."

"What the hell? Are you kidding me?" Donna strides over, Gher trotting beside her. "You don't know what you're gonna do?"

"I know what I'm going to do," he protests. "I'm going to build a stasis field with a time-lock. Easy peasy. I just don't know what I'm going to use to power it. Has to be something that will last more than a few million years." He flicks a finger to indicate what a brief period of time _that_ is.

Donna gawks. "How long do they live?"

"Too long." He starts ticking off possibilities. "A bog-standard black hole is too unstable. A supernova has got the power, but doesn't last long enough."

Gher makes several suggestions, none of which are helpful. The professor says with careful indifference, "Perhaps a quasar?"

"Quasars! Lovely things, quasars! Massive and long-lasting and very, very powerful. Too powerful, really. You get some rather odd temporal effects around quasars. Pity. I've always wanted an excuse to muck about with a quasar."

"Can't you use something smaller?" Donna asks. "Because I was thinking… my friend Marli was a shop window-dresser. She did some really posh displays – for Easter she had a nestful of fake Faberge eggs, and a plush rabbit with an emerald bracelet around its neck."

"Donna, I'm sure it looked absolutely splendid, but I don't think I can power a time-lock with a Faberge egg, even a real one. Though I _did_ once use one to deal with a Cyberman that invaded the Winter Palace. Tzarina Alexandra was very grateful. Charming woman – I wish her grandmother had shown even half—"

"Shut it, you silly git! I'm trying to explain something here." She gives him another Look, and he mimes zipping his lips shut. "For Christmas, he did one of those village scenes, with the little porcelain houses and shops that light up. The first time around, he used one battery – the big square kind – to power all the lights, and he hid it under the cotton wool he was using for snow. The battery got too hot, and the cotton wool nearly caught on fire. So he used a bagful of little batteries instead, all wired separately."

Tragan Vehik looks at her, opens his mouth, then closes it again. He rubs the side of his head, glances at the Doctor, then turns his attention back to Donna. "Small electrical storage units?"

Her expression is cautious, but she answers politely. "Yeah. No! Well, not literally. I just mean that if all these supercharged novas and whatnot are too big, then maybe a bunch of little—"

"Of course!" The words tumble out of the Doctor's mouth, as non-stop as the thoughts whirling through his mind. "We need a molecular cloud! Stellar nursery, all those little protostars popping into existence – _molto bene_! Donna, you are magnificent! Professor, can you set the power control unit to interface with protostars? Yes? Good!" He's scribbling a note as he talks. "Gher! Take this to the High Minister. I don't want him fretting about where we've gone. Off with you!"

"Where _are_ we going?" Donna wants to know.

"Not far. Should be able to find a suitable spot within a radius of eight or nine galaxies away. Just have to evaluate the energy levels and check that there aren't going to be any inhabited planets a few million years further on. Simple." He turns his back on them and pulls out the sonic screwdriver. A mental flick, and the Matrix Crown is alive again. It's easier each time. _Like riding a bicycle._ He hadn't even remembered that it was in the TARDIS, not until the High Minister had started his pissing contest. _"__This old head has worn the Matrix Crown of Rassilon_._"_ And then he'd remembered the last time he'd worn it. _No. Don't think about that. Not now. Not ever._

He aims the screwdriver at the labyrinth. The huge structure begins to condense, shrinking into a smaller and smaller ball. One fraction of his mind is occupied with the Crown, controlling the miniaturisation. Another is explaining to Donna that the formless Hrul cannot be squashed; the maze only needed to be large in order to fit his body; and no, the AECs are no longer necessary, having transferred all of their energy into the trap. The rest of his mind is sifting through possibilities: thousands of scenarios, each with hundreds of variables.

Donna delivers a running commentary of amazement as the trap shrinks down to the size of a cottage, then a van, a garden shed, a rubbish bin, a football, and finally a large apple. She is only silenced when the Doctor strides to the centre of the spiral pattern of AECs, scoops up the glowing sphere, and stuffs it into his coat pocket.

"Right. Time to be going." He looks at Tragan Vehik. "All the materials you need will be in the TARDIS." The Lord Professor nods. His eyes answer the unspoken question, then flicker towards Donna. The Doctor's head dips ever so slightly, and the corner of his mouth twitches. _Yes, I'm bringing her along._

…..

When they enter the TARDIS, Donna is disappointed by the professor's blasé reaction. _Even if you _know _it's bigger on the inside, how can you walk through that door and not be gobsmacked?_ Gher had been suitably wide-eyed and amazed when she brought him in earlier. It's only as the door is closing that she realizes Gher isn't with them. "We have to wait for him. He's earned his share of the fun."

"Nope! No time. Allons-y!" And before she can protest, the TARDIS is dematerialising.

"We have almost twelve hours, and you can't wait one extra minute for him to get back? And since when do you bother to file a flight plan, Martian Boy?" She jabs an accusing finger at him. "You sent him off on purpose."

"Yep. We don't need him for this next bit. You gave him the ha'penny tour of the TARDIS; the price of admission does not include a free ride. Sorry." He toggles several switches and twists a dial. Star charts appear on the console monitor, one after another, like a Facebook slideshow on speed.

"Oh no, Spaceman -- you don't wriggle out of it that easy. What's going on? Why'd you leave him behind?"

He continues to watch the flashing images. "My TARDIS. I choose the passengers." His voice is cold. It's the Time Lord speaking; not the Doctor, not her best mate.

Donna is ready to explode when the soft, dry voice of Tragan Vehik interrupts. "If she is truly your _sarthain_, you should tell her. If she is not, then you should have left her behind with the boy."

The Doctor slams a palm down on a blue button, and the slideshow pauses. He studies the image on the screen as if the answer to all his questions is written there in ancient glyphs that he can decipher if he just stares hard enough. Finally, he lifts his head, but avoids looking at her. One glance at his expression is enough to make an icy lump form in Donna's throat.

"We've got eleven hours, seventeen minutes, and six seconds to make this work. That's just enough time if everything goes as it should. If the time-lock isn't finished when the trap falls apart, the dimensional barriers of the TARDIS will keep the Hrul in. Not forever, but for a good long while. Possibly long enough for them to die off."

"So… if they get loose, we can't dematerialise." It isn't a question. She can do the maths well enough. The numbers are different to what they were in that cave under Vesuvius – three lives weighed against billions – but the equation is still the same. She smiles at him, showing a confidence she doesn't entirely feel. "Yeah. We'll see it through together. I understand."

"No, you don't," he snaps, and his eyes finally meet hers. "If the Hrul get loose in the TARDIS, they'll go for me first, then the professor. You're the youngest. It could be days, even weeks before—"

"Before they're hungry enough to go for me," she finishes.

_tbc_


	11. FellowPassengers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11: Fellow-Passengers

Chapter 11: Fellow-Passengers

Endeavour to live harmoniously with your fellow-passengers.  
_Miss Leslie's Behavior Book: A Guide and Manual for Ladies_  
Eliza Leslie, Philadelphia, 1859

She gives him a wry smile. "Reckoned I'd be last. You know what they say, Doctor -- Age before beauty."

He doesn't need telepathy to detect the fear behind her smile. Although he knows what the answer will be, he has to ask. "D'you want me to take you back? There isn't enough time to get to Earth, but I could manage Paaligiou." If the Hrul escape, they won't return for a century or two. Long enough for her to live out her short human life in safety.

"I told you, Spaceman, you don't get rid of me that easy. Besides, who's gonna tell you when you're being a prat?"

"Donna Noble, you are quite possibly the stubbornest human I've ever met," he informs her, but her smile only widens. He gives her a quick smile in return before focusing most of his attention to the star charts. Humans! Stubborn, idiotic, reckless, magnificent creatures. So quick to give their loyalty, and to risk their absurdly brief lives. Donna is more perceptive than many he's known_, _but can she really understand what she's facing? The Hrul don't kill. Their victims' autonomic nervous systems continue working even after higher brain functions cease. If it all goes pear-shaped, she'll be trapped in the TARDIS with two breathing corpses until she becomes one herself.

It takes one hour, three minutes and forty-two seconds for him to find a location that fits his requirements. He freezes the screen, and beckons the professor over, mentally instructing the TARDIS to translate the display into Paalgi. "Can you work with that? Good. The components we need are in Storeroom Four." Tragan Vehik falls into step behind him as he heads for the inner door. "Donna, we'll be back in a tick."

.....

Donna decides that her first priority is tea. It's a humdrum, ordinary thing to do, and that's exactly what she needs when she's facing unimaginable horrors halfway across the universe. When she'd packed her bags to be ready for the Doctor, she'd included a six-month supply of tea. Had to visit two different Sainsbury's to get enough of her favourite brand. Turned out that it was his favourite, too, and the TARDIS had enough to stock a dozen Sainsbury's. It made her feel a bit foolish, though there was no way that she could have known that. On that terrifying, depressing, amazing wedding-day-that-wasn't, she hadn't seen him eat or drink anything. For all she knew, tea might be deadly poison to him. Sometimes the weirdest thing about the Doctor is how human he seems.

Because her eyes are tired of staring at stark white and electric blue, she selects a cup that's splashed with cheerful yellow and pink peonies. She hesitates, lets out a long breath, then reaches into the cupboard again. By the time she returns to the console room, the Doctor and the professor are busy tinkering with all kinds of technical bits and bobs. She approaches the Doctor first and holds out the tray. "Don't you start thinking that this is gonna happen every day, because it's not," she says, putting on a scowl. "You got that, Spaceman?"

He takes his mug and murmurs, "'Course I do," in a distracted tone that means he doesn't know if she's inviting him to waltz or accusing him of murder. Normally, she'd badger him out of his fog, but right now she figures he's entitled.

Donna turns to Tragan Vehik. "I made an extra cup. If you want." She isn't sure she made the right decision. She knows that, in the professor's mind, she's barely been upgraded from "pet" to "servant". Carrying a tea tray will not encourage him to think of her as the Doctor's partner. Not that she gives a hoot what the geezer thinks of her. And she wouldn't have lifted a finger for him, but he _is _helping the Doctor, who trusts him enough to invite him into the TARDIS. And it is just a cup of tea, even if he's a wrinkled blob of an alien who probably won't like it anyway. Not that she cares what he likes.

The Paalgi stares at the mug as if it's a complicated equation that he can't quite solve.

The Doctor says, without looking up from his work, "Tea. It's a beverage from Earth. Brewed from the dried leaves of _Camellia sinensis_. Lovely stuff, full of tannins and antioxidants."

Tragan Vehik takes the remaining cup -- a souvenir of the 3008 Greenland Summer Olympics -- and sips cautiously. He addresses an empty patch of air midway between Donna and the Doctor. "It is not displeasing. And the stimulant component will be useful."

_It wouldn't kill you to say 'thanks'_, _sweetie_. Donna reminds herself for the hundredth time that the Doctor needs Lord Professor Sourpuss to help sort the Hrul. _And when _that's_ finished, I am going to give him the earful that he bloody well deserves._

.....

Lord Professor Tragan Vehik looks down at the just-completed circuit. How many has he done? How many more remain? It doesn't really matter, because each one has to be individually programmed and calibrated for a different energy load. His fingers are not as quick and talented as they were ninety years ago -- even sixty years ago. A younger man could probably finish the circuit more quickly, but at the cost of of accuracy. One loose conduit or one misprogrammed digit could cause the entire system to malfunction.

The heroes of legend are always young men, but he doubts they would be suited to this strange quest. Hours of tedious labour? Though the Green-Cloaked Princeling had to pick six thousand threnakh berries in one night, he could let his mind drift as he worked, dreaming of his imprisoned lady. An encounter with a fearsome monster? The Hrul cannot be slain with sword-edge or laser-fire, and to fall to them will mean only a slow and shameful death.

In one regard he has surpassed the Prince in Green. That ancient hero rode upon a talking _jrindol_, accompanied by a two-headed mutant which gave sage counsel (when it was not arguing with itself). Tragan Vehik is travelling on _his_ quest in a TARDIS, accompanied by a Time Lord and his _sarthain._ It would be a more pleasing analogy if he could imagine himself as the Prince, but that role clearly belongs to the Doctor. The Lord Professor is a realist. In this version of the old tale, he suspects that he serves as one head of the advice-giving mutant, and the human female is the other.

A human. He would have sooner expected to find himself in the company of a talking _jrindol_ than a human. He realises that he miscalculated in his earlier dealings with the human. If she is not quite a proper _sarthain_ to the Doctor, she is a counsellor of sorts. The impudent way that she speaks to her master misled him. Surely, only an _ekhak_ would be permitted to behave so with a person of status. Then he heard Gher Besif talk about his dealings with the Doctor, who treated the boy as a near-equal. Tragan Vehik concluded that the Time Lord was overly indulgent with _all_ of his inferiors. Persons of the highest rank can afford to do so without losing status. Not until he spoke to the Doctor did he realise the horrifying truth: the Time Lord does not believe in status, at least, not status as it is normally reckoned. How can such a thing be? What society can function unless each person knows his place within it?

_He has no society._ The thought strikes him like a physical blow. _No House, no Guild_, _no kinsmen or year-mates. _Tragan Vehik has known all his life that Gallifrey is gone, but not until this moment has he truly understood what that means for the last Time Lord. _He has no place._ Little wonder that the Doctor behaves one moment as though he he is higher than the Imperator, and the next as though a human is his kinswoman. He has no place, and it has driven him into a sort of madness. _If we survive this, perhaps the Imperator will offer him a title and a home among us._ Tragan Vehik pushes pity and speculation from his mind and reaches for the components of the next circuit.

It's not the danger that's driving Donna nuts -- it's the waiting. Give her a monster to run from, a fortress to break into, or a guard to conk on the noggin, and Donna Noble is your woman. She can search for secret documents, calm a hysterical prisoner, and distract a hyperactive Time Lord. What she cannot do is sit and twiddle her thumbs while two alien blokes tinker endlessly with bits of wire and fuses and other rubbish, like some sort of Martian DIY TV show. She slips quietly out of the control room, and goes in search of distraction.

Nothing helps. She cannot find the garden room that usually soothes her. The DVD player will not turn on, the latest P.D. James novel has vanished from her nightstand, and the library no longer contains anything in English except for the 103rd edition of _The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics_ and a back issue of _The Journal of Municipal Sewage Management_. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the TARDIS wants her in the control room. "Dunno what you expect me to do," she mutters as she makes her way back. "Do I look like a mechanic?" There's no reply, of course. The TARDIS only communicates with the Doctor. Just as well. Even though Donna loves this amazing Police Box and all the wonders it contains, she thinks she would absolutely _freak_ if it ever started talking to her.

She re-enters the control room quietly, though both men are so focused on their work that they might not blink if a bomb exploded. She stands behind the Doctor -- not too close -- watching those long, clever fingers do something she doesn't understand to something she can't describe. After ten or fifteen minutes he sighs, puts his hands in his coat pockets, and turns to face Donna. "It's been a while since I've made a time-lock, but this one is small, as such things go. The fingers have still got it." He pulls his hands out of his pockets long enough to waggle his fingers, as if to demonstrate 'it'. He looks like he's playing an invisible piano.

"What's a time-lock?"

"There are different sorts. This one is like a force field. A bubble of frozen time, you might say."

"And you're sure it'll hold them?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor promises. "Safe as houses. Once the time-lock is activated, nothing can get in or out."

_If you get it finished in time. How long have we got, anyway? _She nods at him. "Get on with it, Spaceman. Don't think I've forgotten you promised me a spa holiday. And it had better be at least a three-star place -- with a pool. Got that?"

The Doctor gives her that wide-eyed don't-you-trust-me? stare. "'Course it's got a pool, plus the mud baths are famous across five galaxies. And they serve drinks with little paper umbrellas in them. Fizzy. The drinks, that is -- not the umbrellas."

_One hour, twelve minutes, thirty-two seconds._ Sometimes the clock in his head is a nuisance, but he can't stop it, any more than he can stop his hearts. Funny that it should take so much time to shape a blob of no-time. Tragan Vehik has finished the power controller, with its many circuits, conduits, and regulators, and is now watching him work. _Watching what he can see, anyway._ The physical components of the time-lock are simple, compared to the power controller. Most of the real work is being done in his mind, using Time Lord senses to make exquisitely precise adjustments in the temporal settings.

He can feel the Lord Professor's gaze on him, as tangible as heat or gravity or the rhythms of the Vortex. He knows what he would see in those pale eyes, if he turned to look. Hunger. Hunger to see, to know, to understand. He understands that craving, has felt it all of his lives. He wishes he could share the elegance and beauty of the temporal structure that is forming beneath his hands. _'That I may see and tell/ Of things invisible to mortal sight'._

He can at least share some of the underlying equations. Paalgi is a sufficiently complex language for that, but it's like showing the written score for a Bach fugue to a member of a deaf species. Tragan Vehik understands some of the theory and will see some of the more obvious patterns, but can never comprehend just how _lovely_ it is. Since he needs a short break anyway, he taps a few keys and lets the TARDIS data banks bring up a few of the simpler equations. First-year Academy stuff. Wordlessly, he invites Tragan Vehik to take a look.

While the Lord Professor squints at the monitor, the Doctor looks at Donna. She's sitting on the jump-seat, head drooping. Dozing or lost in thought? The latter, he decides. Her breathing isn't slow enough for sleep. "Penny for your thoughts?"

She straightens, yawning and blinking. "I don't think they're worth more than a ha'penny. If we still used ha'pennies, I mean."

He digs into his pocket, and hands her a small silver coin.

Donna squints at the tiny lettering. "Henric... Rex. Sounds German."

"Nope. English. Well, the inscription is actually Latin, but the coin is English. Henry I. It's from 1125 or thereabouts. Some ha'pennies, Donna Noble, are rarer and more valuable than others." Her expression -- mingled pleasure and annoyance -- lifts his hearts. "Your turn."

"Just wondering how all this is going to work. When it's finished, I mean. Do you just chuck it out the door? Gotta wear your party hat?"

Even that particular ha'penny was underpayment, he muses, because the ability to make him grin at a time like this is beyond price. He can visualise oh-so-clearly the reaction of the High Council if they heard the Matrix Crown of Rassilon referred to as a 'party hat'. _'Appalled' wouldn't 'alf describe it._ "Yep. You are spot on, Donna. Although I am not merely going to 'chuck it'. I'll have you know that I used to be regarded as a crack bowler--" He mimes throwing a cricket ball. "--and I've still got the moves."

Donna rolls her eyes, but whatever sarcastic quip she was about to utter is interrupted by Tragan Vehik's hiss of annoyance. "Even if she does not have the... training to understand the technical details, you should not give your _sarthain_ inaccurate information."

The Doctor is certain that Tragan Vehik was going to say 'does not have the intelligence', but the man deserves credit for editing his words. He gets bonus points for calling Donna a _sarthain_. And double bonus points, because he's turning to speak directly to the human. The Doctor is so chuffed by this thawing in attitude that he almost doesn't hear what the Paalgi says to her.

"Naturally, I will need to exit the TARDIS in order to correctly orient the power controller."

The wild thumping that he hears _cannot _be his hearts, because they have turned to ice inside his body. "What?! What?! You can't-- that's impossible!"

_tbc_

**Author's note:** The line of poetry that the Doctor quotes is from Milton's _Paradise Lost_.


	12. The Sentinel Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 12: The Sentinel Stars

Chapter 12: The Sentinel Stars

_And the sentinel stars kept their watch in the sky_.  
Thomas Campbell, "The Soldier's Dream"

Donna isn't sure who looks more gobsmacked: Tragan Vehik or the Doctor.

"Why should it be impossible?" the professor asks. "All I need is a repair pod or powered suit. The sort of equipment that is on board any spaceship for exterior work, even something as rudimentary as an intra-system shuttle."

The Doctor spits his words out one by one. "This is not a spaceship. This is a TARDIS. There aren't any pods. There might be a suit... somewhere." He sweeps his arms in a wide gesture that encompasses all of the console room and beyond. "Donna! I've got to get this finished. I can't take time to rummage through 900 years' worth of odds and ends. Take him to--" His eyes go unfocused for a moment. "The most likely places are Storerooms 2 and 6, and the Blue Room. You remember the Blue Room? It's usually near the Library."

"Right. Come along then, Professor. Let's find you a spacesuit." She leads Tragan Vehik out of the console room.

As soon as they are into the corridor, the Paalgi quickens his step so he is walking beside Donna, not behind her. "What does he mean, 'usually near the Library'?"

"Oh, the TARDIS likes to change things 'round sometimes," Donna says casually. _What the hell did the Doctor call it?_ "Reconfigurable architecture, you know. Rooms move." A beat. "I thought your people knew all about Time Lords."

"The Time Lords were always secretive about their technology. It was not their custom to permit outsiders into a TARDIS."

"Yeah, the Doctor is very particular about who he invites on board." Tragan Vehik only grunts, but Donna doesn't miss the speculative look he aims at her. She walks faster, glancing from side to side. "We could use a bit of help here, old girl," she murmurs. Turning left at the second cross-corridor, Donna allows herself a slight smile. She broadens it when the professor inhales sharply.

"I came this way earlier with the Doctor," he protests. "That-- that was not here." He jabs an accusing finger at a panelled oak door.

"Told ya. TARDIS likes to switch things around. That's the Library, so I'd guess she wants us to check the Blue Room first." A moment later, she spots a door that is the colour of a summer sky on the Costa Brava. "_Really_ wants us to check it first." This door used to be white on the outside. She pats the wall as they enter. "Ta."

The room looks the same as ever on the inside: a large space with storage units in every shade of blue, from soft periwinkle to deep indigo. Without a word to each other, Donna and the professor move in separate directions, scanning shelves and flinging open cupboard doors. Donna's never seen a spacesuit in the TARDIS, but she reckons she'll know one when she sees it. _Don't have to be a rocket scientist or a Time Lord to figure out what_ _it's gotta look like, if it's meant to fit someone human-shaped_. It could be a baggy silver boiler-suit with a fishbowl helmet, like the old astronauts wore, or glossy Star Wars armour, or something black and form-fitting, like diving gear. _Details don't matter. Two arms, two legs, and something for the head._

Tragan Vehik finds the body of the suit in a tall cobalt locker. It's neon yellow, made of something that feels like parachute silk. Twenty minutes later, Donna comes across the detachable gauntlets and the helmet in a Victorian hope-chest painted with cornflowers, bluebells, and delphiniums. The purple-black sheen of the transparent helmet reminds Donna of tinted sunglasses. It takes another thirty minutes for the professor to locate the power-pack and life-support units.

"Does it work?" Donna asks.

"That is yet to be determined. I will have to test all the systems."

Donna turns in a slow circle. Near the rear wall is an old-fashioned kitchen table draped with blue-gingham oilcloth. She's reasonably sure it wasn't there ten minutes ago. "That'll do for a workbench." Together, they move all of the suit's components to the table. Donna perches on a bar-stool, and watches from a safe distance.

The professor tinkers with various mechanical doodads and electronic whatsits. He works in silence, except for the occasional hiss of annoyance, so it's all the more startling when he suddenly says, "I require assistance."

Donna nearly falls off the stool. "Ummm.. what do you need?"

He positions the helmet so that the open end is facing upwards. "Hold it like this, motionless. I must reconfigure the life-support."

She bends down, grasping the helmet firmly with both hands. A third of the front panel is taken up with data displays, and large controls switches that can be toggled with the wearer's chin. "And the other systems?"

Tragan Vehik doesn't look up from his work. "The propulsion unit is low on power. It should be sufficient for such a short excursion. Instrument navigation and communications are non-functional, but they will not be needed." He inserts a thin glass rod into the helmet. There's a crackle, then a soft hum. Apparently these are good sounds, because the professor nods his head approvingly. Then, as if continuing a conversation, he remarks, "I have never heard of a Time Lord choosing a member of another species as _sarthain_."

It takes Donna a moment to hear the question beneath the comment. "The Doctor likes to do things his own way. He's had companions from Earth before. Dunno about other planets, but I wouldn't be surprised."

He gazes at her, his pale eyes unblinking. For one alarming moment, she remembers that the Paalgi are telepathic. _Nah. He'd have to be touching my head, like the Doctor did that time. 'Sides, I bet he'd worry about being contaminated by primitive human thoughts._ She lifts her chin. "Where I come from, a bloke only stares like that at a woman if he's trying to scare her -- or hit on her. I don't scare easy, and I'm bloody well not interested, so back off, sunshine."

He nods as if Donna has just answered a very important question. He returns his attention to the helmet, and pokes at something that sputters softly. "The suit is as functional as I can make it in the allotted time. Thank you for your assistance." He drapes the suit over one arm, picks up the helmet, and heads for the door, leaving a speechless Donna to grab the gauntlets and follow after him.

.....

When he enters the console room, the Doctor is walking in slow circles around the completed time-lock. There is a quiet pleasure in the Time Lord's eyes as he inspects his creation. It is a look that Tragan Vehik has seen on other faces: a young man holding the firstborn of his line; a scholar, weary from a sleepless night in her office, emerging with a long-sought answer; lovers reuniting after long separation. _What does he see that I cannot?_

He waits to be noticed, not wanting to interrupt any last-moment calculations or adjustments. The Time Lord completes one final revolution around the time-lock structure, then turns to face Tragan Vehik and Donna Noble. "Found what you needed? Good. I'd be happier if I could tether you, but I haven't got a cable that's long enough. The time-lock has to be at least two kilometres from the TARDIS before it starts up. Any closer, and the results would be... unfortunate."

Tragan Vehik opens his mouth, then closes it, deciding that he does not want to know how the Doctor defines 'unfortunate'. Someone who lived through the Time War must measure calamities on a very different scale. The Doctor might classify multiple simultaneous supernovas as merely 'inconvenient'.

"The time-lock will activate approximately eighteen seconds after the power controller comes online. There's no risk for you in being near it. A time-lock is rather like a wall, except for being squishier. And invisible. Just don't crash into it at full speed. Wouldn't hurt the time-lock at all, but I dare say it would give you a _very_ nasty headache." The Doctor winces, as if imagining the headache. "Any questions? Nah? Let's get you suited up."

Spacesuits may not be standard equipment on a TARDIS, but the Doctor runs through an external safety check as swiftly as if he performs one every day. "Yep. Good. Seal is tight. Power level is lower than I like..."

"There is sufficient power for work and transit time, plus a seven percent safety margin," Tragan Vehik says. "We have how long? Forty minutes?"

The Doctor replies without hesitation, "Thirty-eight minutes, twelve seconds."

_Adequate._ All that really matters is that he has enough time to complete the work, but he has every intention of returning safely to the TARDIS. Whatever the Time Lord may think, Tragan Vehik has no desire for martyrdom.

The Doctor reaches into his coat pocket. The luminous blue sphere containing the Hrul lays in his cupped hand. It looks as harmless as child's toy. He sets it into a hinged wire cradle at the centre of the time-lock device, and swings the top piece shut with a soft click. The power controller fits around the exterior of the device in two concentric, perpendicular circles, held in place by lightweight polymer clips. The clips will only be needed in transit. Once the time-lock is functioning, it will withstand any force -- or so the Doctor said, and Tragan Vehik had been inclined to believe him. Something in the Time Lord's face spoke of hard-won personal knowledge.

The Doctor lays one hand on the console. "When the door opens, the TARDIS will temporarily reduce the surface tension of the force field, then restore it as soon as you've pushed through. Right? Off you go."

_His smile looks as false as a five-legged_ _jrindol. Am I a child to need such reassurances?_

The Doctor's voice rises louder than necessary to be heard through the helmet. "No dawdling, understand? I don't want to wait while you're sightseeing."

Tragan Vehik inclines his head in acknowledgement of the foolish command. _A false smile, yes, but he wears it for himself._

.....

_I had forgotten how it feels, _he marvels as he moves through the vastness. It's been forty years since he last took a spacewalk, and that was a brief courtesy inspection of an weather-control station. He's never done it under these circumstances -- in interstellar space, untethered, without the comforting bulk of a ship or platform looming over him. All he can see in every direction is a star-field so dense that the points of light overwhelm the darkness. _Like a _threnakh _bush in high summer, so heavy with berries that you can scarcely see the leaves. Has Mavrit's youngest ever gone berrying in the South Mountains? I should take him._

He pushes aside thoughts of summer and childish pursuits. The survival of the Empire is tied to his chest with a half-metre wire cable. The distance gauge inside his helmet reads 2.15 kilometres. Time remaining: twenty-seven minutes, thirteen seconds.

The switches and keys on the power controller are larger than would normally be used on such a device. Now, adjusting the settings with clumsy, gauntleted hands, he is glad he anticipated this moment. The settings themselves are burned into his brain, and require no special effort. Time remaining: eighteen minutes, thirty-two seconds.

The scanner attached to his left forearm shows some remarkable readings. He makes makes a mental note to show them to a friend who is a Senior Lecturer in Astrophysics. _I will suggest that he write a paper for the Imperial Academy of Science._ Twelve more circuits to be set. Time remaining: eight minutes, four seconds.

The last circuit. Tragan Vehik lets out a breath he had not realised he was holding. _Thank you, Gods and Ancestors. _He looks over his shoulder where the TARDIS is barely visible as a dark rectangle against the glittering stars. Time remaining: three minutes, fifty-one seconds.

He gently manoeuvres backwards to a position three metres from the time-lock device. and presses the remote trigger. One by one, the stellar interface panels flicker on. When they are all online, the entire array bursts into light so intense and searing that it might be a newborn star.

The polarised light shield in his helmet is activated so quickly that that he suffers no ill effects, save for a few bright spots that dance before his eyes and vanish a moment later. _The initial power flare will last no more than an hour. The shield will disengage, and I will be able to see the TARDIS, and-- stupid! Stupid! Gods and Ancestors, what a fool I have been! A second-year student would have known better._

Tragan Vehik forces his breathing to slow. _Treat it as any other problem_. _Step by step._ He studies the power gauge. He has enough power for the journey back to the TARDIS, plus a few minutes more. Even if he shuts down every non-essential system and just drifts, the power will be exhausted by the time that visibility is restored. He has no instrument navigation to steer without sight; no comm system to ask for guidance. The Doctor cannot retrieve him without bringing the TARDIS dangerously close to the time-lock.

_There is no way back._ Life support will last two hours, perhaps more. That realisation brings a small amount of comfort. When vision returns, Tragan Vehik will have a host of gem-bright stars to keep vigil with him as he waits for death.

_tbc_


	13. Darkness of Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 13: Darkness of Night

Chapter 13: Darkness of Night

We send a hospitable guide to the bewildered traveller, to show him the way through the darkness of night.

_The Perfect Gentleman, Or, Etiquette and Eloquence: A Book of Information and Instruction _by A Gentleman  
New York, 1860

When he was a youngster of forty or fifty, and such a day seemed impossibly distant, Tragan Vehik wondered how he would feel when he faced death. Would he be afraid? Defiant? Content? Regretful? He had never anticipated that he might be... annoyed.

But how can he feel anything else, when this death is so pointless and unnecessary? He would willingly give his life for the Empire, for his House, for his line. If the suit only had power enough for the outward trip, he would still have stepped out of the TARDIS without hesitation.

Dying for a foolish error is another matter. He knew there would be a light flare, knew how long it would last, knew he had no instrument navigation. He knew all of these individual facts, but somehow did not connect them, did not see that they would lead to this moment.

_"Carelessness can kill."_ How often in his career did he recite that truth to first-year engineering students? _"Radiation does not care if you are well-intentioned. Vacuum will not wait for you to be ready. Electricity will not grant you a second chance. The Universe has no mercy, and no tolerance for fools."_

At least his folly will perish with him. When the Doctor returns to Paaligiou, he will report only that Tragan Vehik died after completing his task. _What more can he say?_ _He will not even know the cause, unless his _sarthain _remembers all that I said about the repairs._

The Doctor's _sarthain._ Tragan Vehik has the satisfaction of having solved _that_ puzzle. How can a primitive -- a _human_ \-- be _sarthain_ to a Time Lord? Answer: if the Time Lord she serves is the Doctor, who is quite mad. A proper _sarthain _would be respectful and obedient. She would not rebuke her master if his madness led him into folly. She would not provoke him into action with audacious words, or cheer him with improper witticisms. A mad Time Lord requires an equally mad _sarthain_ to serve him_._ _For his sake, and for the sake of the Universe, I am glad that the Doctor has such a one to aid him in his quests._

Tragan Vehik's adventure has diverged from the tale of the Prince in Green. According to legend, the Prince returned safely on his talking _jrindol_, the two-headed counsellor beside him. The mutant was not cut in twain; one half coming home and the other dying along the wayside. _In children's stories, all ends well. Virtue is rewarded, and only the wicked die. Reality is not always so obliging._

He sighs, looking at the chronometer. Only three minutes have elapsed. He wishes that time would flow more swiftly. He is by no means impatient for death, but he longs to see the stars again. They will be better company than his own thoughts.

**_Turn around.**_

The thought now echoing in his head is not his own, nor is it like any mindvoice he has ever heard. There are no real words in it, nor clear images, just an understanding that he should turn in _this_ direction. The feel of the mind is very alien -- no surprise, since it must be the Time Lord reaching out to him. _But... without touching? And at such a distance?"_ He tries to call out mentally. _Doctor? DOCTOR?_

The only reply is a repeat of the same command. **_Turn around.**_

Either the oxygen readout is faulty and he is hallucinating, or this is an unexpected chance for salvation. Either way, he will not be a fool again. With the barest touch on the controls, he turns until he is facing in the indicated direction.

_**Forward.**_

Again he obeys, moving at a moderate speed, in case he needs to adjust his trajectory. Twice the strange mindvoice instructs him to turn a few degrees. He looks at the readings that indicate time passed and distance travelled. If they are correct, and if his guide is leading him rightly, then he must be nearly to the TARDIS. And surely he is correct, because the mindvoice is growing stronger. It feels like music, echoing in a complex pattern that reminds him of the time-lock equations. _Time Lords can see backwards and forwards in time_ _\-- is this why his mindvoice seems to overlap itself?_

With barely a second's warning, he knows that the TARDIS door is before him. He draws in his arms and legs only a moment before he feels himself passing through the force-field. Then his feet are stumbling on a metal floor, and a strong pair of arms is grabbing his shoulders.

The Time Lord's clever fingers make a quick job of unlatching the helmet. Tragan Vehik stares at him with eyes that must be as wide as moon-cakes. He feels a hoarse laugh escape his throat. "Not... you. The tale is true -- the _jrindol_ speaks..."

Now it is the turn of the the Time Lord and his _sarthain_ to stare -- one in dawning comprehension and the other in confusion -- as Lord Professor Tragan Vehik faces the console of the TARDIS and performs  
the Obeisance of Respect in the First Degree.

As soon as Tragan Vehik heads off to the Blue Room to shed the spacesuit, Donna looks at the Doctor. "Was that what I think it was? The TARDIS guided him back?"

"Yeah. I hadn't a clue until he came back in," the Time Lord says. "I didn't even know he was in trouble. She didn't tell me a thing." He looks at the console with what Donna can only describe as an affectionate scowl. "I suppose too much of her attention was focused out there." He waves vaguely in the direction of the door. "Not an easy thing for her to communicate with someone that far away -- other than me. It helped that Paalgi are telepaths. Course, it would've been easier if-- well, no matter. He's back, and the Hrul are sorted. Next stop, Paaligiou!"

When the TARDIS materialises in the great white hall, pieces of equipment are scattered randomly about, and the AECs, though dull and lifeless, are still arranged on the marble squares like giant draught pieces. Two guards stand beside the door. Nearby is the small table where they ate lunch -- was it only yesterday? -- and jumping up from one of the chairs is Gher Besif, a smile chasing weariness and worry from his face.

The Doctor slaps a control, and the TARDIS door swings open. "Professor? Your stop." Tragan Vehik nods and strides down the ramp.

Donna glares at him. "What do you think you're doing, Spaceboy? Just gonna drop him off and... go?"

"Yep. The Hrul are wrapped up nice and tight, the Professor's safe home, and you, Donna Noble, are owed a spa holiday. Haven't gone and changed your mind about that, have you?"

"Course not, but it can wait ten minutes. I want to say a proper goodbye to Gher, at least."

The Doctor waggles his eyebrows. "Go on, then."

"You're not coming?"

"Well..."

"You _are_ coming," she says in her best no-nonsense voice, and grabs him by the arm. The Doctor sighs loudly, but doesn't resist her pull.

Lord Professor Tragan Vehik is trying to answer his student's questions. 'Trying' because Gher Besif is pouring out an endless stream of questions with barely a pause between them. What did it feel like, travelling in the Vortex? Did the Respected Lord Professor see how _big_ the TARDIS really is? What did the time-lock look like? Will it really hold the Hrul forever? Tragan Vehik wonders if a size 5 magnetic clamp would hold the boy's tongue still long enough for him to answer some of those questions.

He gets a reprieve when the Doctor and Donna Noble walk out of the TARDIS. Gher Besif bounds towards them. "Doctor! Donna!" The boy salutes the Doctor with a quick bow -- _Much too familiar_, Tragan Vehik thinks -- then lets himself be drawn into an unseemly hug with the human.

"The guards have gone to alert the High Minister. All of Paaligiou is waiting to thank you. There's to be a poetic encomium in the Imperial Gardens in your honour, speeches in the Senate, a Solemn Procession of the Houses, and a feast every night--"

The human holds up her hand as if trying to hold off a herd of _jrindols_. "Whoa-- slow down, Gher. What d'you mean 'every night'?"

"Every night of the Moon of Celebration, of course -- that's forty altogether. And they _say_\--" His voice drops to a dramatic whisper. "--that the Imperator himself is thinking of adopting the Doctor into his own House, as a Cousin of the Second Circle. And honours for you too, Donna, I'm sure."

Tragan Vehik does not miss the looks that dart between the Time Lord and the human. It is not telepathy, but it is a silent conversation. The Doctor looks as skittish as a wild beast that hears the hounds baying.

The human puts a hand to her forehead. "Gher, I'm so sorry, but I can't talk right now. I've got a really awful headache."

The Doctor opens his eyes wide, then nods energetically. "I've got something in the medbay that will fix it. She'll be right as rain in an hour or two, so long as she has a bit of a lie-down."

The Doctor gives a different sort of nod to Tragan Vehik. He returns it, and an understanding passes between them. "Go in safety," Tragan Vehik says, quoting the first part of the ancient Paalgi benediction for travellers. He omits the second half, _return in health_. He looks then at the human, inclining his head ever so slightly. She says nothing. For no reason that he can comprehend, the human closes one eye for half a second before she turns, allowing the Doctor to guide her into the TARDIS.

Twenty seconds later, the TARDIS door slams shut, and the grating sound of the Time Rotor echoes through the great chamber. Gher Besif looks up, confused. "They are leaving? Will Donna be all right? Surely the Doctor will take care of her."

Lord Professor Tragan Vehik shakes his head. "In this instance, youngling, I believe that _she_ will be taking care of _him_." He looks over his shoulder to the place where the TARDIS is beginning to dematerialize. "Donna Noble is a _sarthain _of great skill, and she knows her Time Lord. They will both be well."

\-- THE END --

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All the King's Horses](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133183) by [Lindenharp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindenharp/pseuds/Lindenharp), [such_heights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/such_heights/pseuds/such_heights)




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